Joseph Puder

There are<a href="https://archives.frontpagemag.com/point/france-gives-muslim-killer-elderly-jewish-woman-daniel-greenfield/"> obvious echoes </a>of the Sarah Halimi case.

<blockquote>
	
		Sarah Lucy Halimi was thrown out of the window of the third-floor Paris apartment while she begged her Muslim killer to spare her life.

	
		The 66-year-old director of an Orthodox Jewish nursery was woken from her sleep when she was violently beaten by her twenty-something Muslim neighbor who then dragged her to the window.

	
		She died on the street outside the building where she had lived for thirty years.

	
		The 28-year-old Muslim man confessed to the killing and was heard shouting “Allahu Akbar” and calling Halimi “Satan” shortly before&nbsp;throwing her out the window&nbsp;of her three-story apartment.

	
		In January, Traore was determined to be fit to stand trial. He was placed in a psychiatric hospital for weeks after his arrest in the April 2017 killing despite having no history of mental illness.

	
		But a judge requested a second series of tests, which determined that the Malian immigrant was not able to stand trial,&nbsp;20 Minutes&nbsp;reported Wednesday.
</blockquote>


	So there's a history of this sort of thing complete with a cover-up after the fact.


	This latest case involves a 90-year-old Jewish man in Lyon, France, who was<a href="https://www.tribunejuive.info/2022/05/20/sarah-cattan-mr-hadjaj-juif-de-90-ans-jete-par-la-fenetre-du-17-e-etage-par-son-voisin-musulman-chuuuuut/"> pushed out of the window </a>by his Muslim neighbor.

<blockquote>
	
		A nonagenarian died Tuesday in Lyon, probably pushed into the void by one of his neighbors from the floor of a building&nbsp;, the prosecution said this morning.&nbsp;It appears from the first investigations carried out by the departmental security that this person would have been pushed into the void following an argument by one of his neighbors whom he used to frequent&nbsp;.

	
		A judicial investigation of the count of "voluntary homicide" has been opened.&nbsp;The “suspect” is remanded in custody.

	
		According to&nbsp;&nbsp;Le Progrès&nbsp;, the victim, who lived on the 2nd floor of a tall building, was pushed from a higher floor.

	
		The regional daily specifies that “the track of an anti-Semitic homicide was mentioned, before being excluded” and that the investigation is continuing.&nbsp;
</blockquote>


	As it usually is. All Muslim terrorism is just "mental illness."


	The Tribune Juive paper notes that, "Kobili Traoré left the hospital today without having served a day in prison for having thrown Sarah Halimi out of the window after having lynched her."


	Even the JTA mentions that, "More recently, a Jewish man died in a suburb of Paris after running into the path of a passing tram while escaping a group of individuals on the street.&nbsp;The death of Jérémie Cohen in February was initially treated as an accident until his family recovered footage of the assault. The family gave the evidence to Éric Zemmour, a far-right French Jewish politician, who highlighted the case in his presidential campaign last month."


	&nbsp;

90-Year-Old French Jewish Man Pushed Out of Window by Muslim Neighbor

There are obvious echoes of the Sarah Halimi case.


	
		Sarah Lucy Halimi was thrown out of the window of the third-floor Paris apartment while she begged

90-Year-Old French Jewish Man Pushed Out of Window by Muslim Neighbor

Despite the best efforts by the D.C. establishment and its judges, the Sussman trial is moving forward and with that comes <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/20/clinton-campaign-manager-denies-approving-passing-anti-trump-info-to-fbi-00034115">closer scrutiny</a> of the Clinton campaign.

<blockquote>
	
		The manager of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential bid, Robby Mook, testified Friday that the campaign did not instruct or authorize a lawyer to go to the FBI with claims of a potential data link between then-candidate Donald Trump and a Russian bank owned by allies of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

	
		That lawyer — former Perkins Coie partner Michael Sussmann — is on trial in federal court in Washington on a felony false-statement charge brought by special counsel John Durham, who claims Sussmann lied to the FBI when he said he was not acting on behalf of any client in relaying indications and internet data stream between a Trump-related server and one for Moscow-based Alfa Bank.
</blockquote>


	That particular smear, both discredited and explosive, is not the one most people are familiar with, but has shown how far the Clinton campaign was willing to go.


	Mook is denying any connection to it. But here's the buried lede.

<blockquote>
	
		Mook said he had no knowledge of Clinton approving Sussmann to go to the FBI with the server information on behalf of the campaign.

	
		“I don’t see why she would,” he said.
</blockquote>


	Having no knowledge is a different animal.

<blockquote>
	
		Mook confirmed that top campaign officials were aware of the Alfa Bank “secret server” allegations in the summer and fall of 2016, but said they favored handing them off to a reporter.

	
		“Going to the FBI does not seem like a very effective way to get that information out to the public. We do that through the media,” he said.

	
		Mook said that after discussions at the highest levels of the campaign, they decided to do just that. He also said that somewhere around that time he informed Clinton personally and she concurred.

	
		“I discussed it with Hillary as well,” Mook said. “She agreed to that. ... She thought we made the right decision.”
</blockquote>


	Seemingly, Hillary signed off on the media end of the smear campaign.


	But what Mook's really saying is that he was not in on the serious opposition research end of things anyway.

<blockquote>
	
		However, Mook said he didn’t know during the campaign a private investigation firm called Fusion GPS was doing opposition research for Hillary’s bid through the law firm.

	
		“I was not aware during the campaign of anyone they were engaging to do that work,” Mook said. “I did not know that they had been retained.”
</blockquote>


	If Mook is telling the truth, then he wasn't on that part&nbsp;of the loop anyway. But there's no reason to think that Hillary and her people weren't. So as a defense witness, Mook just serves the purpose of drawing a line between the campaign and its darker operations. That's the next step. The shadow campaign that spawned Russiagate.

Hillary Clinton Signed Off On Discredited Russiagate Smears

Despite the best efforts by the D.C. establishment and its judges, the Sussman trial is moving forward and with that comes closer scrutiny of the Clinton

Hillary Clinton Signed Off On Discredited Russiagate Smears

"We're desperate, give us money."


	"If only we had funding, we might be able to teach."


	"Students in America are failing because schools don't have enough money."


	Nah. They have more money than<a href="https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/school-districts-are-struggling-to-spend-emergency-covid-19-funds-11652866201"> they know what to do with</a>. Every single outrageous property tax increase, teachers' union strike, and new budget pours insane amounts of money into a black hole that eats it up and emits nothing in return except more demands.


	We overfund the public school system and the vast majority of the money gets stolen, wasted, or sent off to politically connected consultants, woke textbook publishers, and the rest of the industrial educational complex.

<blockquote>
	
		U.S. school districts are struggling to spend billions of dollars in federal pandemic-relief money before the funding expires.

	
		Districts have yet to spend 93% of $122 billion sunk into the K-12 education system last year as part of the&nbsp;$1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, according to data compiled by the U.S. Department of Education.

	
		The money, the largest-ever disbursement of federal funding for American schools,&nbsp;is meant to address learning loss, mental-health problems and other issues in schools caused by the pandemic. Districts are spending the money on&nbsp;teachers, counselors, technology, after-school programs and upgrades to school facilities.
</blockquote>


	If we wanted to do that, we should have opened up the school system and allowed the money to follow students into educational institutions that, unlike the failed corrupt public school system, actually want to serve them.


	Instead, a bunch of school districts are going to frantically buy up office furniture from designated minority suppliers at a 300% markup and spend millions on diversity, equity and inclusion consultants.

<blockquote>
	
		“There’s a real pressure to show something for it,” said Nick Melvoin, a school board member for the 575,000-student Los Angeles Unified School District.

	
		The district, the nation’s second-largest, has yet to spend a penny of the $2.57 billion in American Rescue Plan money it received last year. It is still trying to use up a few hundred million dollars from earlier stimulus packages.
</blockquote>


	Tragic, just tragic.


	It's hard out there for government workers who have to figure out how to spend stolen taxpayer money as fast as it comes in. Feel their pain. They sure as hell don't feel yours. 
	&nbsp;

Biden Dumped $122B on Schools, 93% is Unspent

"We're desperate, give us money."


	"If only we had funding, we might be able to teach."


	"Students in America are failing because schools don't have

Biden Dumped $122B on Schools, 93% is Unspent

Joshua Katz, a respected linguist at Princeton, is not being fired because of an alleged relationship in 2006, but because he criticized woke abuses in 2020.


	At Quilette, Katz had courageously condemned efforts to silence free speech and eliminate academic freedom.


	"Independence of thought is considered the hallmark of academia, but everyone deserves it. In the United States, thank heavens, freedom to think for oneself is still a right, not a privilege," he concluded.


	In typical fashion, the radical leftists whom he had criticized in a restrained, civil and respectful fashion, unleashed the full fury of cancel culture and set out to destroy him.


	What followed was Lavrentiy Beria's&nbsp;"Show Me the Man and I'll Show You the Crime".&nbsp;


	Since none of the false claims that Katz was in any way a racist or had engaged in hate speech, could go beyond impotent fuming they had to find something else.


	And all <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/princeton-president-asks-board-to-fire-tenured-classics-professor-citing-sexual-misconduct-investigation-11653013224">this witch hunt </a>came up was this...

<blockquote>
	
		Princeton University’s president has recommended that the school’s board of trustees fire a tenured classics professor, concluding he didn’t cooperate fully in a sexual-misconduct investigation, according to a copy of his letter to the board’s chair reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
</blockquote>


	Salem witch trial judges would be embarrassed by this.&nbsp;

<blockquote>
	
		The report said that in 2018, Dr. Katz didn’t fully cooperate with investigators examining a consensual sexual relationship he had with an undergraduate student beginning in 2006, after her junior year, and continuing until her graduation. The student declined to participate in the investigation at that time.
</blockquote>


	We know exactly why&nbsp;Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber wants Katz fired. He told us so himself in an op-ed in 2020, deeming his speech "irresponsible and offensive."


	"Our policies, however, protect Katz’s freedom to say what he did, just as they protected the Black Justice League’s. He can be answered but not censored or sanctioned," Eisgruber claimed.&nbsp;


	Now he grubbily seeks to bypass those policies.


	"Show Me the Man and I'll Show You the Crime".

Princeton Pres. Conspires to Fire Tenured Prof Who Defended Free Speech

Joshua Katz, a respected linguist at Princeton, is not being fired because of an alleged relationship in 2006, but because he criticized woke abuses in 2020

Princeton Pres. Conspires to Fire Tenured Prof Who Defended Free Speech

Predictable and despicable.


	From Obama spokescreep Tommy Vietor (above) to cult leader and presidential candidate Marianne Williamson all of lefty Twitter, the blame for leftists failing to sweep primary elections and oust incumbents is... the Jews.


	If it wasn't for those pesky Jews, the Squad would have grown three sizes overnight.


	A whole lot of money has been pouring into primary races on both sides. The decision by leftists to make the outcome of the primaries about "Jewish money", about a Democratic Majority for Israel and AIPAC, is anti-semitism of a very traditional kind.


	Leftists routinely pour money into local elections from outside the district. But when pump millions from the Bay Area or Park Slope into a primary race thousands of miles away, that's "grass roots energy", but when the accursed infidel Jews do it... well that's just evil.


	Having lost some primaries because of antisemitic candidates, lefties are doubling down on the antisemitism.


	&nbsp;

Leftists Blame Jews for Losing Democrat Primaries

Predictable and despicable.


	From Obama spokescreep Tommy Vietor (above) to cult leader and presidential candidate Marianne Williamson all of lefty

Leftists Blame Jews for Losing Democrat Primaries

At its 74th birthday (May 4-5), the state of Israel has matured into a strong and prosperous nation. Still, many Israelis, while always complaining about the government’s shortcomings, would not want to live anywhere else. They are proud of their country’s accomplishments in its seven decades of existence as an independent Jewish state. On the eve of Independence Day 2022, Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics announced that the population of Israel was&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cbs.gov.il/en/mediarelease/Pages/2022/Israels-Independence-Day-2022.aspx" target="_blank">9.506</a>&nbsp;million, almost twelve times the population as at the establishment of the state in 1948 (806,000). Jews and others constitute 79% of the population, and Arabs 21%. About 75% of the Jewish population is comprised today of native-born Israelis, and more than half are at least second-generation Israelis.


	The 74th Independence Day celebration was marred, however, by a spate of terrorist attacks that claimed the lives of 19 Israelis and wounded dozens of others. In its 74-years of independence, Israel lost over 24,000 soldiers and civilians in various wars and terrorist attacks. In the 1948 War of Independence alone, Israel lost close to 1% of its population at the time: 6,373 people, about 4,000 were soldiers, and the rest civilians.


	Nathan Alterman, Israel’s beloved poet, and chronicler of the War of Independence, a playwright, journalist, and translator, wrote in 1947 his immortal poem&nbsp;Silver Platter:&nbsp;“The state will not be given to the Jewish people on a Silver Platter.” Alterman wrote these wrenching words in 1947, soon after the UN voted on the Partition of Palestine on November 29, 1947. Alterman sought to prepare the Yeshuv (the Jewish community of Palestine) for the painful sacrifices independence would require. He stressed the point that in the coming war, everyone would have to make sacrifices.


	Alterman’s touching poem still remembered by this writer’s generation goes like this (in translation): “And the land grows still, the red eye of the sky slowly dimming over smoking frontiers. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;As the nation arises, torn at heart but breathing, to receive its miracle, the only miracle. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;As the ceremony draws near, it will rise, standing erect in the moonlight in terror and joy.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; When across from it will step out a youth and a lass and slowly march toward the nation.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Dressed in battle gear, dirty, shoes heavy with grime, they ascend the path quietly. &nbsp;&nbsp;To change garb, wipe their brow, they have not yet found time.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Still bone weary from days and from nights in the field. Full of endless fatigue and unrested. Yet the dew of their youth is still seen on their head.&nbsp;&nbsp; Thus they stand at attention, giving no sign of life or death. &nbsp;&nbsp;Then a nation in tears and amazement will ask “who are you?” And they will answer quietly, “<a href="http://www.zionism-israel.com/hdoc/Silver_Platter.htm">We are the Silver Platter on which the Jewish state was given</a>.”


	The annual torch-lighting ceremony at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem marked the beginning of the Independence Day festivities. It follows a national day of mourning for Israel’s fallen soldiers and civilian victims of Palestinian-Arab terror. Uniquely in Israel, the entire nation stands still sharply at 11am, as a long siren ringing across the country is sounded. Vehicular traffic stops in the middle of major highways, and buses across all cities come to a halt. Every Israeli knows a friend, a neighbor, a soldier, or a family member who lost their lives to preserve the Jewish state.


	In a recorded address to the nation on Independence Day, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett stated: “We will overcome any threat from the outside, Israel is stronger than ever.&nbsp;<a href="http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-launches-74th-independence-day-with-torch-lighting-ceremony-1.10780..." target="_blank">The Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the Shin Bet security service, the Mossad are growing stronger at an unprecedented rate.</a>” Bennett added, “Israel is growing, high-tech is blooming, the health system is strengthening, and children in the country’s outskirts are receiving opportunities today they didn’t have before. And thank G-d, those who seek it can earn a living.”


	To be in Israel during Independence Day is to feel the pride and energy of this old-new nation. Considering where Jews were before 1948, in the early years of the state, and where it is today is to witness a miracle. It is not only the miracles on the battlefields, but in the transformation of the country’s infrastructure. It is a nation with few natural resources, but with the genius of its people, which made Israel into the “start-up nation.” Israeli inventions in medicine, agriculture, military technology, electronics, and high-tech in general,&nbsp;are simply stunning. While most Jews have been exiled from their land for 2000 years, and they have not had a fighting army since the days of Bar Kochva’s rebellion against Rome in 135CE, the exploits of the IDF are nothing short of incredible.


	Despite external threats and terror, Israel remains a democratic oasis in the midst of a regional cauldron of barbarism, providing the right to vote to all its citizens, and guaranteeing genuine freedom of religion and freedom of expression. It is a shining example of civility and tolerance in the midst of chaos and intolerance.


	Colonel Richard Kemp, former commander of the British expeditionary forces in Afghanistan called the IDF “the most moral army in the world.” Col. Kemp explained: “There are two views of the Israeli Military — what you hear in most of the media, and the truth. I am going to tell you the truth. I have fought in combat zones around the world including Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Macedonia, and Iraq. I was also present throughout the conflict in Gaza in 2014. Based on my experience and on my observations, the Israel Defense Forces,&nbsp;<a href="https://assets.ctfassets.net/qnesrjodfi80/3Eo3mGQdYAYwu22W2wEQus/37d06bde6b68f0d90457cddd35eb90" target="_blank">the IDF, does more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare</a>.”


	Dvora Waysman, in a&nbsp;Jerusalem Post&nbsp;piece summarizing Independence Day best, wrote: “There is such a feeling of pride when I see the flags flying from cars and buildings all over the country.&nbsp;<a href="http://www.jpost.com/jerusalem-report/article-705907" target="_blank">When I hear the words of ‘Hatikvah’ being sung even now, there are tears in my eyes.”</a>

Israel at 74

At its 74th birthday (May 4-5), the state of Israel has matured into a strong and prosperous nation. Still, many Israelis, while always complaining about the

Jordanian Prime Minister Bishar Khasawneh angered Israelis with his irresponsible statements in a session of the Jordanian Parliament last month (April 18, 2022).&nbsp;In an unusually hostile language for a high government official, he called Israel the “occupation government,” and Israelis, "Zionist sympathizers.” He said, "<a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/rejecting-jordans-praise-for-rioters-bennett-decries-incitement-to-violence/" target="_blank">I salute every Palestinian, and all the employees of the Jordanian Waqf, who proudly stand like minarets, hurling stones in a volley of clay at the Zionist sympathizers defiling the Al-Aqsa Mosque under the protection of the Israeli occupation</a>."


	In his inflammatory address, al-Khasawneh encouraged the Palestinian rioters on Temple Mount, who in advance of the Islamic holiday of Ramadan gathered rocks and stored them in the holy sanctuary of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. They then threw rocks at Israeli buses en route to the Western Wall, as well as on Jewish worshippers below at the Western Wall.&nbsp;On Temple Mount, (al-Haram al-Sharif for Muslims) the Palestinians clashed with Israeli police who were trying to protect the Jewish worshippers below, at the Western Wall (also called the Kotel).


	Israel’s Prime Minister Naftali Bennett was quick to respond to the Jordanian Prime Minister’s incitement.&nbsp;He stated, “The remarks accusing Israel of violence directed against us…there are those who are encouraging rock-throwing and the use of violence against the citizens of the State of Israel.” Bennett added, “This is unacceptable,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/rejecting-jordans-praise-for-rioters-bennett-decries-incitement-to-violence/" target="_blank">this is a reward for inciters, especially Hamas, which is trying to ignite violence in Jerusalem</a>.&nbsp;We will not allow it to happen.”&nbsp;


	Gideon Sa’ar, Israel’s Justice Minister, responding directly to the Jordanian PM remarks, tweeted that, “<a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/rejecting-jordans-praise-for-rioters-bennett-decries-incitement-to-violence/" target="_blank">Statements made by senior officials in the Kingdom of Jordan are grave and unacceptable</a>.”&nbsp;


	What seemed to be only days earlier as a winter honeymoon between senior Israeli officials and King Abdullah II of Jordan became a crisis of sorts during Ramadan.&nbsp;The relations between Amman and Jerusalem deteriorated sharply, with senior Jordanian officials competing among themselves as to which one would be more hostile to Israel.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;


	On March 29, 2022, Israel’s President Isaac Herzog, made the first ever Israeli state visit to Jordan, and he was received with “pomp and circumstance,” following 28-years of formal peace between Jordan and Israel.&nbsp;Herzog implored King Abdullah to help prevent Palestinian rioters from repeating the violence they unleashed the previous Ramadan.&nbsp;&nbsp;


	Israel’s PM Bennett, Foreign Minister Lapid, and Defense Minister Gantz also visited Jordan in recent months.&nbsp;All of them went with the message that called for strengthening ties between Jordan and Israel, which were&nbsp;on the cool side during former Prime Minister Netanyahu’s time in office.&nbsp;&nbsp;


	Jordan is much more dependent on Israel economically than the reverse. To help the strapped Jordanian economy, Israel permits Jordanians to work in Israel, and Israeli tourists in Jordan bring significant tourism revenue to the Kingdom.&nbsp;Israel provides water and gas to Jordan, and allows it to export goods to the West Bank. Hostility toward Israel comes from a major part of the Jordanian public, primarily from its Palestinian population, who comprise at least 60% of Jordan’s population. Queen Rania, King Abdullah II wife, is of Palestinian parentage as well.&nbsp;And yet, the Jordanian monarchy, while grappling with a beleaguered economy, influx of refugees from Iraq and Syria, and Islamist opponents has long recognized the value of its relationship with Israel, in a volatile region that is the Middle East.&nbsp;&nbsp;


	“Jordan is Palestine,” a slogan popularly attributed to Israel’s late Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, ignores the actual originator:&nbsp;King Abdullah I, the grandfather of the current King and namesake.&nbsp;After annexing the West Bank on April 24, 1950, he declared that there are no Palestinians or Palestine, and henceforth all are Jordanians. Arafat latched onto the same concept, but in the reverse.&nbsp;Twenty years later, he claimed Jordan as part of Palestine.&nbsp;Abdullah’s annexation of the West Bank was considered illegal by the international community, with only The United Kingdom and Pakistan approving it.&nbsp;


	Israel is committed to safeguard the territorial integrity of the monarchy, and in 1970, during the Black September bloodletting between Arafat’s Palestinian forces and King Hussein’s Jordanian army; Syrian tanks were poised to cross into Jordan to aid Arafat’s Palestinians. Israel sent a warning to Damascus, that should its forces cross into Jordan, Israel would bomb them.&nbsp;The Syrians withdrew, and Israel saved the day for King Hussein.&nbsp;Jordan serves as Israel’s strategic depth on its eastern frontier, and cooperation between Amman and Jerusalem is a key factor in the US defense strategy in the Middle East.&nbsp;


	The relationship between the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and Israel has seen many fluctuations, hence, the current “crisis” surrounding the Ramadan violence at the Al-Aqsa Mosque need not be too worrisome.&nbsp;Jordan is divided on Israel.&nbsp;On one hand there is the media, which feeds the populace with hostility toward Israel, along with Jordanian politicians who compete with each other on expressing their hate for Israel: together they have impacted on public opinion in the monarchy.&nbsp;On the other hand, there are the Jordanian security services and the army, who are the only partners Israel has in Jordan.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;


	King Abdullah II has maintained diplomatic and security ties with Israel throughout his 22-year reign, irrespective of who Israel’s head of government happens to be.&nbsp;Jordan has prioritized national interest over personality-based calculation.&nbsp;Abdullah is cognizant of his large Palestinian constituency, and having had a mother who was an English Christian woman who converted to Islam in order to marry his father – the late King Hussein, making him especially cautious about angering them.&nbsp;He is therefore unable to foster&nbsp;a warm peace with Israel.&nbsp;The US annual aid to Jordan in the amount of $1.5 billion is crucial to the Hashemite Kingdom, and it compels&nbsp;Abdullah and his ministers to keep Jordan’s relationship with Israel on a relatively continuous track.&nbsp;


	Jordan’s current Prime Minister al-Khasawneh seems to have a history of hostility toward Israel.&nbsp;He declined to accept the ambassadorship to Israel, and he wrote his doctoral thesis in 2007, as an appraisal of the right of return and compensation of Jordanian nationals of Palestinian refugee origins. Fortunately, it is Abdullah, not al-Khasawneh, who determines Jordan’s policy toward Israel.&nbsp;And while Israel’s peace with Jordan will likely remain cold, the security coordination between the two countries will continue to be vital and strong.&nbsp;One thing appears to be certain, should an Islamist revolution end the monarchy, Jordan will indeed become Palestine.&nbsp;

Can the Cold Peace Between Israel and Jordan Last?

Jordanian Prime Minister Bishar Khasawneh angered Israelis with his irresponsible statements in a session of the Jordanian Parliament last month (April 18,

When the former Secretary General of the United Nations (UN) Ban Ki-moon addressed the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict on November 29, 2012, the date was significant.&nbsp;Sixty-five years earlier, the UN voted to partition Mandatory Palestine into two states.&nbsp;Ban Ki-moon failed however to preface his historical reference with the historical facts: The Palestinian-Arabs rejected the Partition resolution, and chose to wage a terror campaign against the Jewish community of Palestine the day after the Partition Plan was voted on (November 29, 1947).&nbsp;Six months later, on May 14, 1948, David Ben Gurion, Israel’s founding father and&nbsp;first Prime Minister, declared in Tel Aviv the establishment of the Jewish state named Israel.&nbsp;A day earlier, the British Mandatory administration departed Palestine.&nbsp;One day after Israel’s declaration of independence, four Arab armies combined with Palestinian-Arab irregulars launched a war of annihilation against the nascent Jewish state.&nbsp;The Jews of Palestine did accept the UN Partition Plan, albeit with less land than promised by the League of Nations mandate given to Britain, which included both banks of the Jordan River (what is today all of Israel and Jordan).&nbsp;


	Ban Ki-moon wrote: “What is needed now is political will and courage.&nbsp;Leaders must show a sense of historic responsibility and vision.&nbsp;Israelis and Palestinians must break out of&nbsp;<a href="http://www.un.org/press/en/2012/sgsm14685.doc.htm" target="_blank">a Zero-sum mentality</a>, and embrace a peaceful path forward.&nbsp;That is the best hope for both peoples.&nbsp;Young people in particular, should be given reason to look to the future with expectation, not with resignation at the certainty of a prolonged conflict.”&nbsp;


	Ban Ki-moon expressed meaningful words. The problem is that it should have been directed at one party only; The Palestinians.&nbsp;It is the Palestinians who have rejected self-determination and statehood because of their zero-sum mentality.&nbsp;Compromise was never part of the Arab-Palestinian lexicon; in fact, the minority of Palestinians who sought compromise and peaceful relations with the Jewish community in Palestine were murdered by the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini.&nbsp;The Mufti was Adolf Hitler’s ally during WWII, and a strong advocate of the Final Solution, which resulted in the Holocaust. The same Haj Amin al-Husseini chartered the course of zero-sum approach in Arab affairs from the early 1920’s until today.&nbsp;Ban Ki-moon’s lecturing Israel a decade ago&nbsp;about zero-sums, political will, and courage is not only misplaced but it is indicative of the UN anti-Israel bias.&nbsp;


	Early on, Palestinian Jewish leaders including Ben Gurion, and Israel’s first president, Dr. Chaim Weizmann, tried hard to reach agreements with Palestinian-Arabs.&nbsp;They were willing to make painful compromises for peace.&nbsp;And since the 1920’s until today, Palestinian-Arabs have said&nbsp;NO to each and every proposal presented by the Jews of Palestine, and later by the State of Israel. The Mufti’s zero-sum attitude stemming from his rabid antisemitism, and Islamist extremism, has influenced generations of Palestinian leaders including the Mufti’s distant relative - Yasser Arafat, and to a&nbsp;lesser extent his successor, Mahmud Abbas.&nbsp;


	Zero-sum politics as practiced by the Palestinians (the Mufti) meant rejecting the 1937 Peel commission recommendation of an Arab state on 75% of Mandatory Palestine, and a Jewish state on less than 20%.&nbsp;As the Mufti saw it, even 1% of Jewish sovereignty was unacceptable.&nbsp;It was to be everything (100% of Mandatory Palestine) for the Palestinians and nothing for the Jews. This attitude was repeated a decade later in the 1947 Partition Plan.&nbsp;It has also pervaded the thinking of Arafat and Abbas, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) Charter, and today’s Hamas’ charter that seeks the destruction of the Jewish state, and its replacement with an Islamist Palestinian state.&nbsp;&nbsp;


	At the July, 2000 Camp David summit chaired by President Bill Clinton, which included Palestinian Authority chairman Arafat, and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, far reaching concessions to the Palestinians were offered by Barak and endorsed by Clinton.&nbsp;Arafat rejected all of it, and chose instead to launch the Second Intifada against Israeli civilians. Arafat’s unwillingness to compromise continued the Mufti’s tradition. Abbas, likewise, failed to compromise when in 2008, Israeli PM Ehud Olmert offered even more extensive concessions.&nbsp;In both cases, Arafat and Abbas knew that anything less than their impossible maximalists demands, including the ‘return of Palestinian refugees to Israel’ (millions of descendants born in Lebanon, Syria, and elsewhere in the Arab world, which would spell the end of the Jewish state, creating a bi-national state) would result in their assassination. The Mufti’s legacy of murdering any leader that would compromise with the Jews continued in the Palestinian streets.&nbsp;


	There is also the Islamist notion of ‘dar al-Islam,’ or the domain or house of Islam.&nbsp;This is the belief that any territory conquered by Muslims is forever part of the Waqf (an Islamic endowment of property to be held in trust).&nbsp;Muslims consider all of Palestine part of the Islamic domain; they similarly consider Spain as well.&nbsp;To the likes of the Mufti and his successors, it means that only Muslims can rule in Palestine.&nbsp;Hence, compromising on a two-state solution, namely partition, or a Jewish sovereign state, is haram or forbidden.&nbsp;


	The Mufti laid down a pattern of behavior in the 1920’s that has been followed to this day.&nbsp;It shuns compromise and operates on intimidation, and murder of anyone who has transgressed.&nbsp;During British Mandatory times, Arab moderates were liquidated by the Mufti’s goons.&nbsp;It has solidified the extremists that still set the tone in the Palestinian society, even among Israeli-Arabs.&nbsp;Israeli-Arab parliamentary (Knesset) representatives are virtually all anti-Israel extremists who openly and defiantly stand in solidarity with Palestinian terrorists.&nbsp;Increasingly though, ordinary Israeli-Arabs are integrating into Israeli society and are rejecting the extremism of their leaders.&nbsp;The majority of Israeli-Arabs, and Jerusalem Palestinians with Israeli identity cards, prefer to live in Israel rather than under the PA.&nbsp;&nbsp;


	Ban Ki-moon stated that, “The outline of an end to the conflict is clear. We know them well.&nbsp;They are laid out in United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions, the Madrid principles,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.un.org/press/en/2012/sgsm14685.doc.htm" target="_blank">including land for peace</a>, the road map, and existing agreements between the parties…”&nbsp;


	Ban Ki-moon was clearly pandering to the Islamic bloc in the UN when he invoked the Saudi 2002 “peace plan,” which echoed the Palestinian demand of the “return of the Palestinian refugees.” He should have known better than make his moral equivalency statements.&nbsp;Israel did make good on the UNSC resolution 242 calling for land for peace.&nbsp;Israel returned the entire Sinai Peninsula to Egypt, including its oil wells, and demolished established Jewish communities. Israel did the same with Jordan; it traded land for peace.&nbsp;


	Once Arafat’s PLO took over negotiations with Israel following the Madrid process, there was never a chance for peace.&nbsp;Just like his distant relative, the Mufti, he used intimidation and terror to squash any possibility for a peaceful compromise and a two-state solution.&nbsp;The weakness of the current Abbas-led PA has increased the influence of the Islamist terror group Hamas in Gaza, and their jihadist partners; the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.&nbsp;


	As long as the legacy of the Mufti, Haj Amin al-Husseini prevails among Palestinians, and the zero-sum mentality coupled with intimidation, terror, and murder&nbsp;guides Palestinian leadership, there will not be peace or a two-state solution.

Palestinian Zero-Sum Mentality

When the former Secretary General of the United Nations (UN) Ban Ki-moon addressed the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict on November 29, 2012, the date was

The anti-Israel and antisemitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement were given another win by an American academic association this time; it was the Middle East Studies Association (MESA). On March 23, 2022, its membership approved a resolution endorsing “<a href="https://mesana.org/news/2022/03/23/middle-east-scholars-vote-to-endorse-bds" target="_blank">the Palestinian call for solidarity in the form of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)</a>.” The vote was 768-167 in favor of the resolution, which held Israel accountable for alleged human rights violations as suggested by the pro-Palestinian-led organization. The resolution calls for an academic boycott of Israeli institutions and universities.&nbsp;


	It is rather ironic, if not extremely cynical that the actual founder of the BDS Movement, Omar Barghouti, a Palestinian-Arab who was born in Qatar, not in “Palestine,” received his Master’s degree in philosophy in the heartland of Zionist Israel, at Tel Aviv University. He and many of his fellow Palestinian students have enjoyed total academic freedom there, including participation in anti-Israel demonstrations, that they wouldn’t dare hold in Palestinian universities, where they would likely be beaten, arrested, banished, or even killed.&nbsp;


	The same Barghouti who incites against Israel worldwide, with charges of “apartheid,” declared in June 2013, “<a>We have no faith in the so-called negotiations</a>,” and rejected the idea of a two-state solution. He has likewise rejected peace between Israel and the Palestinians, and advocates the dissolution of the Jewish state. When asked by an Arab interviewer Ali Mustafa (Electronic Intifada, May 2009) to explain calling Israel “an apartheid state,” he claimed that “<a href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/boycotts-work-interview-omar-barghouti/8263" target="_blank">he doesn’t need to prove it</a>…”&nbsp;


	The fact that Arab-Israelis (some calling themselves Palestinians), are involved in every facet of Israeli life, from being members of the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) to Supreme Court Judges, high ranking military officers, hospital doctors and administrators, pharmacists, university professors, and now the Arab-Islamic party Ra’am, being part of the Israeli coalition government makes Barghouti’s claims willfully outrageous. As to the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and in the Gaza Strip, their terror against Israeli Jewish civilians necessitates Israeli safety measures such as a security fence, check-points, and secure roads for Israelis living in these parts. Let us be clear, Palestinians in the West Bank are not Israeli citizens, and have rejected statehood and compromises for peace time and time again.&nbsp;


	The fact that MESA members have endorsed the BDS Movement makes them complicit in partnering with terror, rejection of peace, and a two-state solution. Authoritarian and undemocratic entities such as the terrorists Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza, Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, Assad’s regime in Syria, and the Ayatollahs regime in Iran,&nbsp;who torture and murder teenagers, and religious and ethnic minorities with impunity, are ignored by MESA. It lays bare MESA’s anti-Israel bias. There was no MESA vote to boycott or sanction these countries and groups, nor any other oppressive regime anywhere, applying it only to the Jewish state that provides religious freedom, with civil and human rights for all of its citizens.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;


	Another irony is that while MESA is turning away Israeli universities research institutions, Arab states have welcomed them with open arms. Bahrain, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt, Morocco, and others are seeking to cooperate and learn from Israeli academic institutions. Conversely, MESA and many of its membership have chosen to be identified with intolerance and bias.&nbsp;


	Attending a number of MESA conferences, this reporter (a graduate of Middle Eastern Studies) couldn’t help but sense the anti-Israel bias. Israel is essentially shoved into a corner while the focus is on the Arab world, and pandering to the Palestinian cause.&nbsp;


	In MESA’s resolution to boycott Israeli institutions it cited, “<a href="https://mesana.org/news/2022/03/23/middle-east-scholars-vote-to-endorse-bds" target="_blank">restriction of movement for Palestinians</a>,” but failed to mention Palestinian terror, and targeting Israeli Jews for murder. MESA didn’t mention the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hatred embedded in Palestinian school curriculums and pervasive throughout the Palestinian educational system from kindergarten to university, nor the incitement to murder that follows. MESA charged that Israel is “<a href="https://mesana.org/news/2022/03/23/middle-east-scholars-vote-to-endorse-bds" target="_blank">attacking Palestinian educational institutions</a>,” but didn’t reveal that these unnamed Palestinian institutions are hotbeds for Palestinian terrorists, and an armory for instruments of death, such as bombs, guns, and other devices. And, on rare occasions when Israeli personnel enter a Palestinian campus, it is strictly, and only as a counter-terrorism measure to seize arms and detain terrorists before they get a chance to kill.&nbsp;


	MESA North America called on American colleges and universities to “<a>uphold academic freedom on their campuses</a>.” But, Arab and leftist groups, including Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and BDS Movement activists, regularly and violently disrupt pro-Israel speakers on campuses throughout America with impunity. MESA has never issued a resolution boycotting or censuring these organizations that have made a mockery of academic freedom. &nbsp;


	MESA hypocrisy notwithstanding, its decision to boycott Israel didn’t arouse attention in Israel or elsewhere. MESA, like the other associations who succumbed to the anti-Israel hatred, long ago stopped being a gateway for Israeli academics.&nbsp;Israeli researchers are currently welcome in most Arab countries to the chagrin of the Palestinians and their supporters. In the UAE in particular, Israeli scholars and researchers are sought-after guests.&nbsp;The wider world is open to Israel, Israelis, and prominent research institutes worldwide promoting close cooperation with Israeli institutions, recognizing Israel’s academic excellence.&nbsp;


	The professional and academic associations, as well as some of the mainline Protestant denominations calling for boycotting Israel, are usually staffed and controlled by anti-Israel activists who take advantage of the passivity of the majority of the membership, who tend to be apathetic toward politicking.&nbsp;In the case of MESA especially, two-thirds of its association’s membership did not participate in the vote, a clear expression of their disinterest in mixing academic research with a political agenda and action.&nbsp;In fact, many members cancelled their membership in MESA as a result.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;


	Professor Eyal Zisser, of Tel Aviv University, Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies pointed out that, “Among the leading activists calling for the boycott of Israel <a href="https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/the-israel-boycotters-bark-but-their-bite-is-negligible/" target="_blank">are the fringes of the American Left, Arab-American researchers who have made hatred for Israel – not criticism – the lowest common denominator that unites them and gives them an identity</a>.&nbsp;None of these people can agree on anything pertaining to the Arab world – the conflict between Sunnis and Shiites, between secularism and Islam, between dictatorships and democracy – hence Israel is the hatchet they use in search of their lost identity.&nbsp;Essentially, when they attack Israel what they mean is the United States, which they view as the source of all ills afflicting the Arab world.&nbsp;But because the American taxpayer funds their salaries, it’s convenient for them to turn their arrows at Israel.”&nbsp;


	MESA’s boycott of Israel has only hurt its membership and its image as a fair-minded association.&nbsp;Israel’s scientific and technological advances have benefited and enriched humanity.&nbsp;This has been recognized by numerous governments,&nbsp;especially the US, where most states have legislated anti-boycott laws. MESA’s boycott of Israeli institutions is at best like a ‘dog...all bark but no bite.’

The Anti-Israel Bias of the Middle East Studies Association

The anti-Israel and antisemitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement were given another win by an American academic association this time; it was

One can understand the biased propaganda in the Palestinian media. Their conflict with Israel makes them demonize the Jewish state. What is it about the anti-Israel bias, and distortion of facts by many in the western media? They can easily discern fact from fiction, and they’re free to move everywhere in Israel, with access to people and events, yet their reports lack accuracy, and smack of bias.&nbsp;


	Media outlets such as Reuters,&nbsp;Guardian, and&nbsp;BBC to name a few, are deliberately avoiding&nbsp;using such words as “terror,” and “terrorist,” in the way they&nbsp;covered the recent terror attack by a Palestinian Arab on innocent Israeli civilians sitting in a Dizengoff street bar in central Tel Aviv, last Thursday, April 7, 2022. This&nbsp;triggered an angry reaction from the Israeli Foreign Ministry to the above-named media outlets over the deliberate omission of the nature of the attack, and the identity of the terrorist attacker who murdered three young Israelis and wounded twelve others.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;


	The BBC headline reported from Israel that, “<a>Palestinian gunman killed after a deadly attack at Tel Aviv bar</a>,” adding, “He was found after a huge manhunt following an attack on a bar which killed two people, police say.”&nbsp;In this BBC YouTube video, the announcer called the Palestinian terrorist simply “gunman.” No motive was given by the BBC for the terrorist killer’s action, when it was clear&nbsp;he was motivated by a jihadist urge to kill Israeli Jews, with the same motivation the previous three terror attacks in Beersheba, Hadera, and B’nei Brak.&nbsp;The BBC report failed to identify the victims as Israeli Jews.&nbsp;


	In none of the subsequent eleven revisions of its headlines, nor in the rest of the story, did the BBC use the words “terror” or “terrorist” to define the terrorist killer Ra’ad Hazem from Jenin… Instead, audiences were told at various points that it was a “gun attack” or a “shooting” by a Palestinian gunman, and sometimes “Palestinian attacker.”&nbsp;Apparently, the selectively applied by BBC editorial guidelines on the use of language, the words terror, terrorism, and terrorist appear only in describing counter-terrorism, and quotes from Israeli officials.&nbsp;


	Reuters World tweeted on the terror attack, “<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/palestinian-who-killed-2-tel-aviv-shot-by-israeli=-forces-2022-04-08/" target="_blank">Israeli forces shoot dead Palestinian after Tel Aviv bar attack</a>.”&nbsp;This distorted report was even worse than the BBC’s. Nowhere does it mention that three Israelis were murdered and many others injured by the “Palestinian,” or his motive for the killings. Moreover, the Reuters tweet puts a negative onus on “Israeli forces,”&nbsp;not on the terrorist killer, and there is no clue as to who was attacked and killed at the Tel Aviv bar.&nbsp;


	The British Guardian&nbsp;headlined its story, “Israeli forces kill Palestinian following shooting in Tel Aviv bar that left two dead.” Angry Israelis flooded&nbsp;social media, outraged by the Guardian’s headline.&nbsp;As a result, the Guardian changed its headline to “Israel: Two dead following an armed gunman opened fire in Tel Aviv bar.” Once again, the headline does not identify the “armed gunman” or his Israeli victims.&nbsp;


	The Israeli Foreign Ministry was not content with the Guardian’s slight change of&nbsp;headline, and sought to point out the paper’s lack of professionalism.&nbsp;The message to the paper was, “words have consequences,” and when mistakes are made, it is essential that the outlet correct it immediately.&nbsp;


	The spokesperson for the Israeli Foreign Ministry tweeted in response to the BBC’s refusal to use the terms “terror” or “terrorist,” suggesting that if&nbsp;(the BBC) is unable to call a person who murdered Israelis (simply because they were Israelis) a terrorist, that (the BBC) is giving legitimization to his deeds.&nbsp;


	CNN, NPR, Washington Post, and&nbsp;New York Times, like their British counterparts, used the same script provided by Reuters, refraining from calling the Palestinian killer a terrorist.&nbsp;The New York Times, like the British outlets, used the term “occupied territories” to define Judea and Samaria, typical for the liberal-left press.&nbsp;Although the New York Times provided more details, its headline read, “Palestinian <a href="nytimes.com/2022/04/07/world/middleeast/israel-tel-aviv-shooting.html">who killed 2 in Tel Aviv is shot dead after manhunt</a>.”&nbsp;


	The anti-Israel bias in the western media can be dated to the aftermath of the 1967 Six Day War,&nbsp;when Israel was transformed by the media from a proverbial “David” into a “Goliath.” To many in the liberal media, Jews are to be victims, not victors.&nbsp;Sympathy was given to the martyred Jews in the Holocaust, but none to the living Israeli Jews today, who have survived and flourished against all odds.&nbsp;Democratic and Jewish Israel was able to achieve material and military success, which raised old antisemitic tropes by some reporters and editors, driven by envy and resentment.&nbsp;The secular globalist media elites in America and Europe resent the idea of a Jewish state, but have no problem with 22 Arab-Muslim states, and 57 states (the Organization of Islamic Conference) under the banner of Islam.&nbsp;


	Many reporters and editors&nbsp;are clearly ignorant of Middle Eastern history, and most don’t speak the languages of the Middle East (Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Hebrew). As a result, one would rarely read in an article about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that mentioned the fact that the Palestinian-Arabs rejected self-determination in November 1947, when the UN voted to partition Palestine into two sovereign states: an Arab state and Jewish state.&nbsp;This was the second opportunity for Arab-Palestinians to assert their self-determination.&nbsp;The first&nbsp;was a decade earlier when the British Peel Commission arrived at the same conclusion: that there must be two separate states for Jews and Arabs in Palestine.&nbsp;


	The Palestinian Arabs rejected many more such opportunities in subsequent years.&nbsp;The Oslo Accords and the July 2000 summit at Camp David could have provided the Palestinians with a state. Instead, Arafat&nbsp;chose a bloody intifada.&nbsp;In 2008, Israeli Prime Minister Olmert made even greater concessions to Mahmoud Abbas than PM Ehud Barak made to Arafat. Still, Palestinian leaders continued to reject statehood by saying no to compromise and peace.&nbsp;Much like in 1947, Palestinian leaders would rather focus on destroying the Jewish state than provide a national framework (state) in which their people could prosper.&nbsp;Prosperity for Palestinians won’t be found in Hamas-controlled Gaza or in the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, where authoritarianism, corruption, and human rights abuses are the rule.&nbsp;Israel is being used as the scapegoat by Hamas and the PA leadership to cover up for their misrule.&nbsp;With Palestinian media, mosques, and schools preaching hatred for Israel and Jews, and inciting their young people to kill Israelis, is it any wonder killers like Ra’ad Hazem would murder innocent Israelis relaxing in a Tel Aviv bar?&nbsp;


	A significant number of western media outlets and their leadership have resented&nbsp;Jewish people’s success, and now begrudge the success and prosperity of&nbsp;Israeli democracy, as imperfect as it may be. The constant harping on “occupied Palestinian territory” by many of these outlets is patently false and misleading.&nbsp;The late Eugene Rostow, former dean of Yale University law school and former Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs in the Lyndon Johnson administration, made it clear that Israel has as much claim to the West Bank territories as the Palestinians. You won’t, however, find it in&nbsp;BBC, NPR, or NYTimes reports.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;


	The easiest route for today’s reporters and their editors is to pick an underdog and a bully.&nbsp;In the eyes of the “politically correct” elites in the western liberal media, the Palestinians are “brown people” and are therefore automatically underdog “victims.”&nbsp;Hence, their underlying perverted rationale is, “white” Israeli forces, “shoot dead Palestinians,” and the Palestinian terrorist killer is merely a “Palestinian attacker,” and not a vile terrorist murderer.

Western Media Distortions and Anti-Israel Bias

One can understand the biased propaganda in the Palestinian media. Their conflict with Israel makes them demonize the Jewish state. What is it about the anti-

President Joe Biden seems to be dedicated to the foreign policies of his former boss, President Barrack Obama.&nbsp;Like Obama, he is clearly bent on reviving the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) also known as the Iran nuclear deal.&nbsp;In its eagerness to sign a deal with the Iranians at all costs, the Biden administration is willing to overlook the human rights abuses being committed by the Ayatollah’s regime and its praetorian guards – the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).&nbsp;It is similarly ready to put aside the issue of Iran’s development of long-range ballistic missiles that would enable Tehran to equip such long-range missiles with nuclear payloads and target major sites on American soil, not to mention all points in Israel and the Arab Gulf states.


	Former President Obama did more than lift the sanctions imposed on Iran, he provided the Ayatollahs with $150 billion in cash.&nbsp;It enabled the Iranian regime to grant generous military and financial aid to the Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon, the jihadist Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), Hamas in Gaza, as well as the Houthis in Yemen.&nbsp;The windfall from the JCPOA also afforded the IRGC to&nbsp;provide military training, equipment, and funds to an assortment of Shiite militias from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.&nbsp;It amounted to the Obama administration strengthening Iran and its proxies at the expense of the security interests of Israel, Saudi Arabia, and other Gulf states such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain.


	President Donald Trump reversed that equation.&nbsp;He applied a “maximum pressure” sanction policy that crippled Iran’s economy. He also maintained closer ties with Saudi Arabia, and designated the Houthis as a terrorist organization.&nbsp;At the same time, Trump became the first American president to fulfill the promise to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Israel’s historical capital – Jerusalem.&nbsp;He recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and acknowledged the legality of Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria. Trump consigned the IRGC to the list of terrorist organizations, and placed sanctions on its leadership.


	The Biden administration is now ready to reverse practically all the actions his predecessor took in the Middle East.&nbsp;First and foremost, Biden is prepared to turn Trump’s “maximum pressure” on Iran into “maximum concessions,” rewarding Iran for renegotiating the nuclear deal.&nbsp;The Biden administration is also seeking to bring about a rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, just as Obama did.&nbsp;This is part of the administration’s so-called refocusing on the Asia-Pacific theatre, while leaving the Middle East to fend for itself.&nbsp;This divestiture from the region, while China and Russia are moving deeper into the Middle East, may backfire on the US.&nbsp;It is clearly evidenced by Saudi Arabia’s leaders ignoring Biden’s calls and American requests from Riyadh to pump more oil into the market, to satisfy western consumers demand, and in an effort to lower energy costs for Americans.&nbsp;


	Curiously, while asking the Saudis to increase the oil supply so that Americans at the gas pump will be less angry, as they will soon vote in American election primaries, Biden has de-listed the Houthis as a terrorist organization.&nbsp;Another irony is that Biden also asked the Saudis and Israelis to support the sanctions against Russia over its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.&nbsp;Yet, at the same time, Russia is more than likely getting sanction waivers so that it can continue to guarantee the nuclear deal with Iran. No wonder the Saudis are snubbing the Biden team.&nbsp;&nbsp;


	Biden’s “balancing” act is in many ways an assault on the regional order the US had established following WWII.&nbsp;The nuclear deal with Iran would likely replace the former US-led regional security structure with a system in which Iran, backed by China and Russia, becomes America’s new sub-contractors, while its hitherto allies&nbsp;-&nbsp;the Arab Gulf states, and to some extent Israel, are demoted to second-tier states.&nbsp;It is precisely for this reason that some of the moderate Sunni-Arab states, especially Bahrain, Egypt, Morocco,&nbsp;the UAE, and Israel, seem to be forming a defense and security pact, as a bulwark against an aggressive and hegemonic Iran, that is becoming a “threshold nuclear state.”&nbsp;The above mentioned states still hope that the US will play a major role in such an alliance.&nbsp;The Sde Boker summit earlier this month laid this unprecedented foundation.


	During both the Biden and Obama administrations, Iran increased its maligning activities in the region directly or through its Shiite proxies.&nbsp;Yet both Biden and Obama have called on Riyadh to “de-escalate its war in Yemen against the Houthis, and advised Jerusalem to forgo building homes in Judea and Samaria lest it might alienate the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, where Mahmud Abbas, and his failed team have shown little willingness to compromise for peace.&nbsp;Biden’s Washington also counseled Israel to be more restrained in responding to the PIJ and Hamas’s provocative terror attack on Israeli cities last May, which prompted Israel to react with Operation Guardians of the Wall.


	In fact,&nbsp;Reuters&nbsp;reported (April 7, 2021) that, “The Biden administration announced (that) it would&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-palestinians-usa-blinken/u-s-restores-assistance-for-palestinians-to-provide-235-" target="_blank">provide $235 million in US aid to the Palestinians</a>, restarting funding for the United Nations agency supporting refugees (UNRWA) and restoring other assistance cut off by then-President Donald Trump.” &nbsp;UNWRA is nothing less than an incubator for Palestinian terrorism.&nbsp;At UNRWA schools, children are taught hate for Israel, Jews, and non-Muslims.&nbsp;The following month, while Hamas and the PIJ lobbed missiles at Israeli cities,&nbsp;Reuters&nbsp;reported (May 14, 2021) that, “The Biden administration notified Congress…that it will&nbsp;<a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2021-05-14/us-sending-new-aid-to-palestinians-as-conflict-intensifies" target="_blank">send millions of dollars in US assistance to the Palestinians</a>&nbsp;aimed at promoting peace even as violence between the two sides rages… US calls for restraint, (and) that it will provide $10 million to Palestinian groups in the West Bank and Gaza…&nbsp;<a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2021-05-14/us-sending-new-aid-to-palestinians-as-conflict-intensifies" target="_blank">The recipients of the aid were not named</a>.”


	Both Hamas and PIJ are trained, armed, and funded by Iran’s IRGC, and should the renewed nuclear deal with Iran be signed and implemented, Iran will once again receive billions of dollars in sanctions relief, and Russia, no doubt will also get a cut, which will help Moscow fund its war in Ukraine.


	In a March 2016 interview with the&nbsp;Atlantic Magazine, President Obama asserted that wars and chaos in the Middle East will not end until Saudi Arabia and Iran can find a way “<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-obama/saudi-arabia-iran-must-shape-cold-peace-obama-says-idUSKCN0WC23A" target="_blank">to share the neighborhood</a>.” Obama had thought to create a balance of powers between Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Israel.&nbsp;What he clearly missed is the fact that Iran wants to “wipe Israel off the map,” and in its hegemonic drive in the region, it is employing terror and instability throughout the region, not to mention its efforts to push the US out of the Middle East.&nbsp;President Biden is willingly going along with Iran’s desire to expel the US from the region, albeit, it is happening with Iranian rockets aimed at servicemen and US facilities in the region.

The Biden-Obama Administration’s 'Rebalancing' in the Middle East

President Joe Biden seems to be dedicated to the foreign policies of his former boss, President Barrack Obama.&nbsp;Like Obama, he is clearly bent on reviving

President Joe Biden’s most important job is to protect America from foreign threats, and not necessarily appease the left-wing of his Democratic party.&nbsp;The threat that China, Iran, and Russia pose to US security is considerable.&nbsp;While China and Russia are brute forces in the international arena, they have not caused American deaths in military-like operations. Iran, on the other hand, did.&nbsp;The Military Times&nbsp;reported (April 4, 2019), “The Pentagon…upping the official estimates of US troops in Iraq who were killed by Iranian-backed militias, now&nbsp;<a href="https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2019/04/04/iran-killed-more-us-troops-in-iraq-than-prev" target="_blank">put that number at 603</a>.&nbsp;Those casualties were the result of explosively formed penetrators (EFP), other improvised explosive devices (IED), mortars, rocket propelled grenades (RPG), small arms, sniper and other attacks.”


	Following the drone strike that killed Maj. General Qasem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force, in January 2020, US President Donald Trump explained that Soleimani’s orders have “<a>Viciously wounded and murdered thousands of US troops</a>, including the planting of roadside bombs that maim and dismember their victims.”&nbsp;Trump also attributed to Soleimani the killing of an American contractor, Nawres Hamid. Trump pointed out that Soleimani was planning additional attacks on Americans when he landed in Baghdad.


	Lest we forget, on November 4, 1979, Islamist and radical Iranian students, inspired by the Ayatollah Khomeini, seized the US embassy in Tehran and took 50 American diplomats as hostages, and held them for 444 days.&nbsp;This was certainly an act of war against America, which the US has never really avenged, and currently, the Biden administration is simply appeasing.


	While negotiations on the renewal of the nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran were going on in Vienna, missiles from an Iranian base struck in the vicinity of the newly constructed US Consulate just outside Erbil, the capital of the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), earlier this month. It is clear that the Ayatollah regime intended to hurt American lives and property.&nbsp;It did not however give pause to the US participation in the negotiations.&nbsp;It is compounded by the insulting setup whereby US representatives had been exiled to a separate hotel location in Vienna, as demanded by the Iranians.&nbsp;Moreover, Iran demanded the delisting of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) from the list of terrorist organizations.&nbsp;The combination of all of these facts, along with the continued cheating by the Iranians on their previous nuclear commitments, has diminished the US stature. All of that notwithstanding, the Biden administration’s eagerness for a deal with the leading state-sponsoring terrorist entity endangers American security, and that of its allies, including Israel, is inexplicable.


	Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the continued negotiations in Vienna over the renewed nuclear deal with Iran, “absurd.” He pointed out that signing the current nuclear agreement with Iran would provide the Ayatollahs with a nuclear arsenal. “It would also relieve sanctions and give them (Iranians) hundreds of billions of dollars to continue the terror that they waged yesterday (the attack on the US Consulate in Erbil), and wage every day throughout the Middle East and the world.”&nbsp;Netanyahu added, “This agreement is even worse than its predecessor, because in three years’ time, under this agreement, Iran will be a threshold nuclear state.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-says-its-absurd-iran-nuclear-talks-ongoing-after-erbil-attack/" target="_blank">It will have enough enriched uranium to create dozens and dozens of nuclear bombs</a>, and will have ICBM’s (Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles) to deliver them to any place in the US.”


	Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, at a cabinet meeting earlier this month, reiterated the position the current Israeli government has taken with regard to the ongoing nuclear talks: “<a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-says-its-absurd-iran-nuclear-talks-ongoing-after-erbil-attack/" target="_blank">The disadvantages of the agreement far outweigh its advantages</a>.&nbsp;In any case, the agreement does not obligate the State of Israel in any way.”


	It seems that President Biden is driven by two commitments; the first is to his former boss, President Barrack Obama, and one of his major foreign policy “achievements,” namely the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or the Iran nuclear deal.&nbsp;The second is to stem the current escalating energy costs that contribute to inflation, by enabling the Iranian regime to deliver its oil to the open markets.&nbsp;While domestically produced energy could easily meet the shortages, Biden is constrained by his “Green New Deal” proponents of leftist Democrats in Congress.&nbsp;In any case, whatever extra oil Iran could deliver to the market, China, not American consumers, will benefit from it.


	It is not, however, only Israeli and Arab Gulf leaders who believe that the current nuclear deal with Iran, and lifting the sanctions on Iran is misguided and dangerous. US Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) thinks so as well. Menendez articulated best, saying: “We cannot allow Iran to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.foreign.senate.gov/press/chair/release/chairman-menendez-we-cannot-allow-iran-to-threaten-u" target="_blank">threaten us into a bad deal</a>&nbsp;or an interim agreement that allows it to continue building its nuclear capacity.” He went on in his address to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (February 1, 2022), “I have been cautiously optimistic about the Biden administration’s initial efforts.&nbsp;I waited for the last year to see results.&nbsp;Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the Secretary of State and others, senior members of the administration insisted they would look for a ‘longer and stronger’ agreement… &nbsp;However, a year later, I have yet to hear any parameters of ‘longer’ or ‘stronger’ terms or whether that is even a feasible prospect.&nbsp;And even when it seemed a constructive agreement might be possible last summer, upon taking office, the Raisi government abandoned all previous understandings and, as I mentioned, made absolutely clear that Iran’s ballistic missiles and regional proxy networks are ‘not negotiable.’ Moreover, at this point, we seriously have to ask what exactly are we trying to salvage?”


	Senator Menendez continued: “We cannot ignore Iran’s nefarious support for terrorism or accept threats to American interests and lives. We must welcome legitimate and verifiable peaceful uses of nuclear power, but remain true to our nonproliferation principles and our unyielding desire to build a more stable, safer, prosperous world for the American people and all peace-loving people to thrive.&nbsp;In order to do so, Iran cannot and must not possess a nuclear weapon.”


	Menendez added, “As someone who followed Iran’s nuclear ambition for the better part of three decades, I am here today to raise concerns about the current round of negotiations over the JCPOA, and Iran’s dangerously and rapidly escalating nuclear program that has put it on the brink of having enough material for a nuclear weapon… That’s how long most analysts have concluded it would take Iran to produce enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb if they choose to do so.&nbsp;This isn’t a timetable we can accept.”


	Iran’s current regime is not just another ordinary state with the usual interests. It is a fanatical theocratic regime that has pledged to “wipe Israel off the map.”&nbsp;Its regime has sponsored parades of thousands shouting “death to America.”&nbsp;The Ayatollah's regime isn’t only a threat to America, Israel, Gulf Arabs, and the world; it is putting in danger its own people due to its messianic and jihadist dreams.&nbsp;The Iranian regime has abused its own people, including the execution of teenagers and minorities.&nbsp;This Ayatollahs regime is devoted to deception and terror, and it is practicing taqiyyah, which in modern terms means to conceal one’s intentions.&nbsp;Netanyahu exposed the Iranian lie about wanting nuclear energy for “peaceful” means; now Biden, as America’s commander-in-chief, must protect America by offering a credible military option against the threat of an eventual nuclear Iran.

Why Biden's Nuclear Deal With Iran is Dangerous for America

President Joe Biden’s most important job is to protect America from foreign threats, and not necessarily appease the left-wing of his Democratic party.&nbsp;

By accident, I recently stumbled upon an old interview I did with the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in March 1993, at the Kiriya in Tel Aviv.&nbsp;At the time, PM Rabin held two portfolios: that of Prime Minister and Defense Minister.&nbsp;As such, he preferred meeting people at the Kiriya, which is where the Defense Ministry is located.&nbsp;Rabin was intimately familiar and fond of his offices there, going back to his days as Chief-of-Staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) during the Six Day War. &nbsp;


	Rabin’s no-nonsense, direct manner betrayed his sensitivity toward people.&nbsp;And, although direct and biting at times, his responses appeared genuine, revealing a true commitment to his beliefs.&nbsp;PM Rabin looked much younger than his age at that time (71), his ruddy cheeks said to be a result of his disciplined drinking (whiskey was his favorite).&nbsp;Some people considered PM Rabin as having a cool demeanor. I found him to be a superb conversationalist, and certainly not aloof. &nbsp;


	Following a short description of my radio talk show program – The American Mideast Forum on W-MCA New York City, home of the legendary host Barry Farber, we then ended the chit chat and I began our interview. &nbsp;


	Joseph Puder (JP): Mr. Prime Minister, do you believe that the Jewish settlements in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza are assets or liabilities? &nbsp;


	Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin: First, let me say that my preference is to see Israel as a Jewish, democratic state, living in peace and security.&nbsp;Also, I do not want to swallow as part of Israel 1.8 million Palestinians. The annexation of the territories outright, as the Likud proposes in its vision of Greater Israel is also the annexation of 1.8 million Palestinians, and that would make Israel a bi-national state. Therefore, realizing that the Palestinians in the territories are a distinct national entity politically, religiously, and ethnically, I do not want them to be part of Israel.&nbsp;Anyway, they would reject the idea, and we would have to impose ourselves upon them.


	Secondly, by no means am I ready to withdraw to the pre-Six Day War lines&nbsp;EVEN IN THE CONTEXT OF PEACE.&nbsp;A diplomatic peace is not yet&nbsp;real&nbsp;peace; it is an essential step in the peace process leading toward a&nbsp;real&nbsp;peace.&nbsp;There will be, however, a long lapse of time between the signing of peace treaties, or the diplomatic peace, and the onset of&nbsp;real&nbsp;peace, a peace that the average man on the street will consider as peace. In the time gap between diplomatic and&nbsp;real&nbsp;peace, we need defensible borders.&nbsp;Even though I do not want to absorb 1.8 million Palestinians and the territory on which they live, I want to make clear a few things: First, Jerusalem and its surroundings must remain united under Israeli sovereignty and our capital forever.&nbsp;Second, I want the Jordan River to be the defense line of Israel… &nbsp;


	JP: Do you mean the Jordan River or the Jordan Valley? &nbsp;


	PM Rabin: I mean both the River and the Valley. I am also referring to the Eastern slopes of the Samarian-Judean hills. As you know, the area is sparsely populated by Palestinians. &nbsp;


	JP: I believe, Mr. Rabin, that this was in essence the Allon Plan? &nbsp;


	PM Rabin:&nbsp;Yes,&nbsp;it is basically&nbsp;the Allon Plan. And thirdly, to continue where I left off, even in the context of peace, I will not go down from the Golan Heights, as far as peace with Syria is concerned.&nbsp;Therefore, on one hand, I oppose the position of the Likud and the Right Wing parties demanding all of the land.&nbsp;The question for me is not “territory for peace,” but rather maintaining an Israel that is at least 80% Jewish, and democratic.&nbsp;I do not want to see an Israel with a third of its population being Palestinian. Since I believe that Judaism and racism are in contradiction with one another, I reject the transfer of the Palestinians or an “apartheid” like situation of denying them equal rights. &nbsp;


	JP: If somebody was to tell you that the demographic time bomb that Yasser Arafat promised will not materialize because of the massive Jewish Aliyah from the former Soviet Union, would that settle the demographic question? &nbsp;


	PM Rabin: I never believed in the demographic issue.&nbsp;Everyone knows that since 1967, the basic demographic ratio within what used to be British Mandatory Palestine has not changed.&nbsp;Let us assume that another million Soviet Jews will are added on – it would still leave a third of the population being Palestinian. &nbsp;


	JP: Mr. Prime Minister, do you believe that peace with the Arab states is possible given their social, political, and economic system; can you make peace with dictatorships in the long run? &nbsp;


	PM Rabin: It will require first a change in the Arab society throughout the Arab world, and the achievement of a democratic system similar to the one in America, Europe, and Israel.&nbsp;For that we will have to wait fifty to one hundred years.&nbsp;In the coming thirty years there will be no peace.&nbsp;I believe, however, that peace is attainable regardless of the Arab mentality, society, or government. &nbsp;


	JP: Do you mean a peace that is no war or&nbsp;real&nbsp;peace? &nbsp;


	PM Rabin: That is why I said earlier that I distinguish between a diplomatic peace, or a peace treaty, and a&nbsp;real&nbsp;peace which means: the disappearance of hate, suspicion, and prejudice that has accumulated on both sides. This is why even in the context of a diplomatic peace (peace treaty), I would seek defensible boundaries. This is because I am aware of signing peace treaties with Arab countries that have no democracies and that there can be quick changes of policies, attitudes, and governments… At the same time, I also know that without diplomatic peace there can be no&nbsp;real&nbsp;peace. &nbsp;


	When I visit with German or French leaders, I ask them how long it took them to achieve&nbsp;real&nbsp;peace. Some of them would say 150 years, others said 300…to assume, however, that once we sign a peace treaty there would be no threat from the Arab states in the future would be a mistake. &nbsp;


	JP: If&nbsp;real&nbsp;peace is to reign in the region, and between Israel and its Arab neighbors, would it not require democratic institutions to emerge, and do you see any on the horizon? &nbsp;


	PM Rabin: I believe that you can sign a peace treaty with all the neighboring countries except Lebanon.&nbsp;It includes Syria, Jordan, and even the Palestinians. It will however be a diplomatic peace, and won’t be a “love affair.”&nbsp;And as you know, in international affairs you cannot find love.&nbsp;I also believe that a guarantee of any peace agreement will require a strong IDF and defensive borders.&nbsp;I remember once asking the former Secretary of State Dean Rusk (when I was ambassador to Washington), “what is the value of international agreements?” He replied: “It isn’t worth the paper it is written on unless it is backed by the kind of force that will make the other side consider the penalties too heavy to break the agreement.” &nbsp;


	In September 1993, Israel and the Palestinians signed the Oslo Accords and the following year peace with Jordan.&nbsp;Yitzhak Rabin would be have been amazed by the 2020 Abraham Accords between Israel, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Morocco, and Sudan.&nbsp;At this time, it seems that peace with Bahrain and the UAE is the closest thing to a “love affair.” It is a warm peace, unlike the one with Egypt and Jordan.&nbsp;The Arab world though, still awaits the emergence of genuine democratic institutions.

My (Still Extremely Relevant) Interview With The Late PM Yitzhak Rabin

By accident, I recently stumbled upon an old interview I did with the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in March 1993, at the Kiriya in Tel Aviv.&nbsp;At the

World attention has been focused on the war in Ukraine between the invading Russian forces and the Ukrainian people defending their homeland’s independence and sovereign rights.&nbsp;This crisis has however overshadowed another critical situation in which the Iranian regime, like that of Putin’s Russia,&nbsp;is taking advantage of US President Joe Biden’s administration’s weakness.&nbsp;In Vienna, Austria, where the nuclear talks are being held between the five powers (Britain, China, France, Germany, and Russia) and Iran, with the US being relegated by the Iranians to exile in a nearby hotel.&nbsp;The on and off talks have been going on for almost a year, with Iran dictating the terms.&nbsp;It is now finally reaching a climax, in which Iran will get $7 billion in sanction relief, while it keeps its centrifuges, and is allowed to develop its long-range ballistic missiles.&nbsp;No serious attempt has been made by the western powers participating in the Vienna talks, including the US (albeit, from a separate location), to demand from Iran the ceasing of its maligning activities in the Middle East, including the arming, training, funding, and commanding its proxies Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis.&nbsp;The radical Ayatollahs regime in Tehran is the prime state-sponsor of terrorism worldwide.


	The audacity of the Iranian negotiators knows no limits; now they are demanding that the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the Ayatollah Khamenei’s praetorian guards, and his terrorist arm be removed from the US terrorist list.&nbsp;Iran’s arrogance, nevertheless, finds a sympathetic ear in Biden’s Vienna chief negotiator Robert Malley.&nbsp;Moreover, just like Putin’s Russia, Iran is capitalizing on Biden’s administration’s weakness, knowing that the Biden administration won’t resort to a military option, and that he wants a deal at all costs, even if it is a dangerous deal.&nbsp;Richard Nephew, the deputy to US special envoy for Iran Robert Malley, has resigned or was dismissed because he disagreed with Malley. Nephew favored a tougher approach to Iran due to his long experience in negotiations with the Islamic Republic of Iran.


	Actually, the only condition the Biden Administration appears to demand from Iran is the release of four American citizens taken as hostages by the Ayatollahs regime. It seems that the White House is looking with trepidation at the upcoming mid-term Congressional elections, and is desperately seeking some sort of win in foreign policy after the debacle in Afghanistan.&nbsp;The White House apparently fears a Republican congressional victory more than a nuclear Iran.


	It is wishful thinking to believe that at this juncture in history Iran would consider giving up its quest for nuclear arms.&nbsp;Witnessing the brutal assault of Russian forces on the Ukrainian people, the Iranian regime and others may have been reminded of the fact that in 1994, Ukraine gave up its thousands of nuclear weapons, and transferred them to Russia.&nbsp;This followed the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Under the agreement known as the Budapest Memorandum, in exchange for giving up its nuclear weapons, Ukraine sought and received guarantees from the US, Britain, and Russia, that its sovereignty and security will be assured.&nbsp;


	The Iranian regime had no intention of giving up on the idea of having nuclear weapons, and the Ukraine situation has only increased their determination.&nbsp;Iran has cheated all along by deceiving the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and its inspectors.&nbsp;They have denied IAEA inspectors access to Iranian military facilities, as well as constructed unreported nuclear facilities.&nbsp;Some of these facilities were exposed by Iranian defectors.&nbsp;In January 2018, Israeli Mossad agents, in a most daring operation, lifted Iran’s nuclear secrets.&nbsp;These secrets proved without a doubt that, “Despite Iranian insistence that its (nuclear) program was for peaceful purposes, the country (Iran) had worked in the past (JP: before and during the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action - JCPOA 2015 agreement between Iran and the world powers)&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/15/us/politics/iran-israelmossad--nuclear.html" target="_blank">to systematically assemble everything it needed to produce Atomic weapons</a>.”


	One can easily assume that the Ayatollahs already have an assembled bomb, and if not, they have the intention and the wherewithal to assemble it.&nbsp;Given these circumstances, it is incomprehensible as to why the US and its western partners would lift the sanctions imposed on Iran by the US and the UN. Moreover, providing Iran with the extra cash flow that would enable the nefarious Iranian regime to fund its terror operations, posing an existential threat to Israel and to the Sunni-Arab Gulf states is sheer insanity…


	Frankly, the negotiations have no purpose since the new deal sunset date of 2025 would clear the way for the Ayatollahs to legally be able to develop massive industrial-level centrifuge capacity in less than three years.&nbsp;After 2025, the breakout time for a nuclear bomb may be six to twelve months, and that is only on paper…


	US Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ), told CNN-TV that he thinks the P5+1 negotiators in Vienna are headed for ‘a good bad deal.’ He added, “And what is the problem with that? The problem with that is the administration said at the beginning that I totally embrace is that&nbsp;<a href="https://www.menendez.senate.gov/newsroom/in-the-news/menendez-if-iran-deal-is-bad-a" target="_blank">no deal is better than a bad deal</a>.&nbsp;I don’t think there is such a thing as a good bad deal.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.menendez.senate.gov/newsroom/in-the-news/menendez-if-iran-deal-is-bad-a" target="_blank">It is either a good deal or a bad deal</a>.”


	According to&nbsp;Reuters News&nbsp;(February 25, 2022), “<a href="http://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/senior-iranian-cleric-demands-removal-banking..." target="_blank">Iran will continue to enrich uranium at a 20% purity even after the sanctions on it are lifted, and the 2015 nuclear deal with the world powers is revived</a>, Iranian news agencies quoted the country’s nuclear chief as saying.” This would clearly exceed the 2015 JCPOA agreement that set the level of uranium enrichment at only 3.67%, and the JCPOA deal also declared specifically that Iran cannot conduct any enrichment at the Fordow nuclear facility.


	If the US succumbs to Iran’s demands, it is certain that China and Russia will support such an agreement.&nbsp;Both these countries stand to benefit from such a one-sided deal in which the US and its western allies get nothing in return. Should Iran be allowed to bring its oil to the open market, which will not fill global demand, it will likely go to China.&nbsp;The consequences of Iran being a ‘threshold nuclear state’ for the US and the free world would be however most severe.&nbsp;The Middle East will more than likely become nuclear.&nbsp;Saudi Arabia and possibly the UAE will purchase a bomb from Pakistan, and others such as Turkey will seek one as well.


	The impending agreement between the world powers and Iran at the nuclear negotiations in Vienna prompted Israel’s Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to react.&nbsp;Speaking (March 1, 2022) at the Mossad headquarters he declared, “<a href="https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-diplomacy/article-699013" target="_blank">The agreement does not oblige us</a>, and the date in another two-and-a-half years that allows Iran to install countless centrifuges certainly does not obligate us.”&nbsp;He added, “<a href="https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-diplomacy/article-699013" target="_blank">The sun will never set on the security of Israel and the good of its citizens</a>.”

U.S. Surrender in Vienna

World attention has been focused on the war in Ukraine between the invading Russian forces and the Ukrainian people defending their homeland’s independence and

To most Israelis, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan represents nothing less than an antisemite.&nbsp;He has attacked Israel many times and in numerous forums. During Israel’s operation Guardian of the Walls (May 2021) against Hamas’ terror missile attack against Israeli cities, Erdogan accused Israel of “terrorism” against Palestinians, adding, “<a href="https://www.dw.com/en/us-condemns-antisemitic-remarks-by-erdogan/a-57576000" target="_blank">It is in their nature</a>.”&nbsp;Erdogan went on to say, “<a href="https://www.dw.com/en/us-condemns-antisemitic-remarks-by-erdogan/a-57576000" target="_blank">They are murderers to the point that they kill children who are five or six years old.&nbsp;They are only satisfied by sucking their blood.</a>" Erdogan’s libelous, malicious, and bogus accusations prompted the US State Department spokesperson Ned Price, to issue a statement saying, “The US strongly condemns President Erdogan’s antisemitic comments regarding the Jewish people and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dw.com/en/us-condemns-antisemitic-remarks-by-erdogan/a-57576000" target="_blank">finds them reprehensible</a>.”


	Erdogan inherited his antisemitic cues from his mentor, Necmettin Erbakan, the founder and leader of the Islamist Welfare Party.&nbsp;Although Erdogan’s hostility toward Israel and Jews didn’t have the same level of obsession as Erbakan’s, and he (Erdogan) has had a greater propensity for political pragmatism, nevertheless,&nbsp;over time when discussing Zionism, Jews, or Israel, his speeches resembled that of Erbakan’s in their antisemitic tone and hue.&nbsp;


	On January 2009, at the Davos, Switzerland World Economic Forum, a panel discussion on the recent Israeli operation against Hamas in Gaza in the aftermath of Hamas’ rocket attacks against Israel, with then Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan and Israeli President Shimon Peres, the former (Erdogan) charged Peres, by saying: “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/30/world/europe/30clash.html" target="_blank">When it comes to killing, you know well how to kill</a>.”&nbsp;This crude charge came from the mouth of the leader of the radical Islamist Muslim Brotherhood (MB) movement.&nbsp;Hamas, being closely embraced and protected by Erdogan is the Gaza branch of the MB.


	In a 2014 speech before the Washington-based&nbsp;Council on Foreign Relations, Erdogan defended himself against the accusation of being an antisemite.&nbsp;He stated, “<a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/erdogan-rebuffs-anti-semite-claims-but%20lashes-israel-for-massacre/" target="_blank">Holding a state responsible that massacres is not antisemitism</a>.&nbsp;It is not antisemitism either to criticize an administration that massacres innocent babies and children in their homes, mosques, hospitals, schools, beaches, and parks without discrimination.&nbsp;Our criticism is not directed at the Jews at all.&nbsp;It is solely directed at the Israeli administration and its policies…”


	Erdogan has repeatedly falsified facts.&nbsp;The Turkish Islamist flotilla and its main ship&nbsp;MV Mavi Marmara, set out to break the Israeli blockade of the terrorist Hamas controlled Gaza, and defied Israeli naval orders to turn back.&nbsp;When Israeli commandos boarded the ship, they were attacked by Turkish Islamist activists with iron bars and knifes, and one of them seized a gun from an Israeli and aimed to kill him.&nbsp;To defend their lives from mortal danger, during the struggle, nine Turks were killed and 10 Israeli commandos wounded.&nbsp;Another Turk subsequently died.&nbsp;It was clearly a case of Turkish provocation and violence, which the Israelis needed to respond to in order to defend their lives. In 2020, following President Donald Trump’s decision to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Erdogan hosted a meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), and called for jihad against Israel.&nbsp;


	Given Turkey’s economic troubles, the free fall of the Turkish currency - the Lira, and its political isolation, added to Iranian proxies in Iraq attacking a Turkish base near Mosul, Iraq. Erdogan is on a quest to re-arrange Turkey’s geopolitical situation, and heal its economic ills before the election scheduled next year.&nbsp;His recent visit to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had clear economic as well as political ends.&nbsp;Israel is seen by Erdogan as another beneficial source of economic gain, not least in the realm of tourism.&nbsp;But with open eyes at the emerging Sunni-Muslim and Israel alliance against a hegemonic Iran, Erdogan began to throw hints about rapprochement with Israel.&nbsp;He needed to find the appropriate contact in Israel.&nbsp;While his relationship with former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government was acerbic and getting worse, the new government in Jerusalem, especially a new president, provided a possible opening. Erdogan is pleased in particular with the participation of the Islamist Arab party Ra’am in the Israeli coalition government.&nbsp;Ra’am is affiliated with Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP).


	In June 2021, on the election of Isaac Herzog as Israel’s president, Erdogan called to congratulate him.&nbsp;He then called Herzog again to express his condolences on the death of Herzog’s mother.&nbsp;Herzog, on his part, called Erdogan to wish him a speedy recovery and get well, after Erdogan was infected with the coronavirus.&nbsp;Erdogan has subsequently invited Herzog to visit him in Ankara.&nbsp;The Turkish media has confirmed that Herzog will be visiting Turkey on March 9-10, 2022.&nbsp;Erdogan’s top adviser, Ibrahim Kalin, and the Turkish Deputy Foreign Minister Sedat Onal, came to Israel to prepare for Herzog’s visit and discuss relations between the two countries.&nbsp;


	The overtures Erdogan has made toward Herzog have spurred a certain momentum in the cooperation between Israel’s Mossad and the Turkish intelligence agencies, as well as between their respective foreign and defense ministries.&nbsp;On February 11, 2022, the Turkish media reported that Turkey’s national intelligence agency – MIT, thwarted an Iranian assassination attempt on an Israeli businessman named Yair Geller.


	The convergence of Israeli-Turkish relations occurred even while Erdogan was fuming with invectives against Israel.&nbsp;In the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Israel and Turkey found themselves on the side of Azerbaijan, while Iran and Russia sided with Armenia.&nbsp;Israel and Turkey both have close relations with the Central-Asian states of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan; all of these “stans” were former soviet republics, and all belong to the Turkic family of nations. Turkey, like Israel, is concerned with Iran’s role in Syria, and its hegemonic drive in the region.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;


	Gas is certainly an economic factor in the apparent budding ties between Turkey and Israel.&nbsp;In recent years, Israel has become a major natural gas power.&nbsp;It is currently supplying natural gas to Jordan and Egypt, as well as to Lebanon through a third party.&nbsp;The US has encouraged Israel to supply gas to Turkey in order to limit its dependence on Russian gas, especially now when the US and its NATO allies have decided to impose severe sanctions on Russia due to its invasion of Ukraine, and the gross violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty.&nbsp;Erdogan would be happy to end Turkey’s dependence on its historical enemy -Russia.&nbsp;Erdogan would love to convince the Israelis to ship its gas through a direct pipeline to Turkey, which he would then extend to Europe.


	Reuters&nbsp;reported (February 8, 2022) that Turkey will not abandon Palestinian support for closer ties with Israel. Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told reporters, “Any step we take with Israel regarding our relations,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/turkey-says-it-will-not-abandon-palestinian-" target="_blank">any normalization, will not be at the expense of the Palestinian cause, like some other countries</a>.”&nbsp;Just as Erdogan is unlikely to close Hamas’ offices in Turkey, Israel will not abandon its close ties with Cyprus and Greece.


	So, will the leopard change his spots? Israelis are skeptical. Many believe that Erdogan is trying to drive a wedge between Israel and its Hellenic allies Cyprus and Greece.&nbsp;Others contend that Erdogan’s supposedly ‘new approach’ is a temporary result of his deteriorating economy and his political standing, which is in free fall.&nbsp;The only way he can convince Israel that he has changed is by cutting his ties with Hamas.

Erdogan and Herzog: a Budding Romance?

To most Israelis, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan represents nothing less than an antisemite.&nbsp;He has attacked Israel many times and in numerous

The Biden administration debacle in Afghanistan has convinced America’s enemies of the administration’s weakness and vulnerability. The timing of Vladimir Putin’s march on Ukraine is undoubtedly connected to the perception in Moscow of Washington’s lack of will to engage in a confrontation. Communist China is astutely waiting for the right time to seize Taiwan.&nbsp;Should Moscow achieve its objectives, Xi Jinping, China’s dictator would follow Putin’s example and act, knowing full well that the Biden administration would pay lip service to the violation of Taiwanese sovereignty, and perhaps demand UN sanctions, but ultimately, Washington would live with the new reality.


	The radical and theocratic Ayatollahs also sense an opportunity to take advantage of the Biden administration’s willingness to have a deal at all costs, and thus have been successfully pressing their demands, and it appears that the Biden administration might cave in.&nbsp;Tehran also realized that there will not be military consequences from the US with their continued advancement toward a nuclear bomb. Iran continues to develop its ballistic missiles range and payload, to possibly carry a nuclear device. At the same time, the Iranians have continued their adventurism and terror throughout the region.&nbsp;Tehran also considered the fact that North Korea has never suffered the military consequences of becoming nuclear.&nbsp;Economic boycotts by the West are clearly no longer a deterrent against Iran, North Korea, China, or Russia.


	In the Middle East, the Sunni-Arab Gulf states have already perceived the Biden administration’s withdrawal from the region both as a sign of weakness and thus increasingly viewing the US as a questionable protector.&nbsp;On his recent (February 3, 2022) trip to Bahrain, Israel’s Defense Minister Benny Gantz signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with his Bahraini counterpart.&nbsp;It is a Security Cooperation Agreement, an expression of Israel’s interest in forming a NATO-like alliance in the region, meant to be an anti-Iranian regional alliance, in the same way NATO served as an anti-Soviet Union alliance.&nbsp;In both cases, the idea is to forestall Iranian expansionism in the region, to counter its aggressive and maligning force.&nbsp;Bahrain is a small nation with a majority Shiite-Muslim population, but ruled by Sunni-Muslim monarchy that has been under periodic threats from Iran.&nbsp;In the past, Iran claimed Bahrain as part of its Fars Province.


	In late November of 2021, Gantz visited Rabat, Morocco, to sign a similar agreement he had signed in Manama, Bahrain.&nbsp;In late January 2022, Gantz traveled to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), with an Israeli delegation of senior security experts to examine how Israel could help the Emiratis with an advance warning system, and the interception of missiles and drones. The Houthis, Iran’s proxies, had previously attacked the UAE with drones launched from Yemen.&nbsp;It stands to reason that similar visits to Saudi Arabia took place, albeit clandestinely.&nbsp;As the custodians of Islam’s holiest sites of Mecca and Medina, the Saudis are hesitant to establish open diplomatic relations with the Jewish state.&nbsp;Still, their regional rivalry with the radical and revolutionary Iran, and the historical animosity of Sunni-Muslim Arabia toward Shiite Iran, makes an anti-Iranian security cooperation agreement with Israel rather likely.&nbsp;Nevertheless, the Biden administration has initiated a rapprochement between the Saudis and Iran as a way to facilitate the talks with Iran on the renewal of the nuclear deal.&nbsp;


	While Israel has proven its military and intelligence capabilities on multiple occasions, Israel does not have the global capabilities and reach that the US possesses as a superpower.&nbsp;But, as the US apparent departure from the Middle East nears, and as it is re-focusing on China and Asia Pacific, a regional Middle Eastern alliance, anchored in Israel and inclusive of the moderate Sunni-Muslim states constitutes a force multiplier, which Iran undoubtedly fears.


	Omar Rahman, in a&nbsp;Brookings Report&nbsp;(July 21, 2021) wrote: “The UAE&nbsp;<a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-emergence-of-gcc-israel-relations-in-a-changing-middle-east/" target="_blank">views Israel as a formidable regional power that shares its views</a>&nbsp;(JP- The view is that Iran is the cause of regional instability, and together with Turkey is meddling and intervening in the region. And, Israel also shares with the UAE concerns over the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates, backed by Turkey and Qatar.&nbsp;For Israel, one of these affiliates is Hamas in Gaza) and is willing to act forcibly to counter regional adversaries.”


	Iran’s apparent strategy seeks to push the US out of Iraq, and ultimately out of the region.&nbsp;In the Ayatollahs view, the exit of the US from the region is an essential condition for tipping the balance of power in the Middle East in their favor, and it is imperative for Tehran’s quest to impose its hegemony in the region.&nbsp;It is therefore vital for the US to “deputize” Israel as the security anchor for its regional partners, i.e., the Arab Gulf states in particular, while Washington is dealing with its greater challenges, namely China and Russia.


	A NATO-like Middle Eastern alliance of Israel and moderate Sunni-Arab states, especially the Gulf states, should also include the US, albeit, without necessarily the commitment embedded in NATO’s&nbsp;Article 5, which calls for collective security.&nbsp;Few Americans would support a US commitment in such a volatile region as the Middle East.&nbsp;The inclusion of the US in such an alliance would strengthen it significantly, and would have a deterrent effect on expansionist and terror-sponsoring states like Iran.&nbsp;Just like NATO served as a deterrent against the Soviet Union and now Russia’s expansionism in Europe, the Middle Eastern alliance would serve the same purpose against Iran.


	The Trump administration had planned to establish a Middle East Strategic Alliance – anchored by a united Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), to advance security, prosperity, and stability. Now, however, as the Abraham Accords have brought about close economic and security relations between Bahrain, UAE, Morocco, and Israel, it is essential the Jewish state play a major role in such an alliance.&nbsp;With Israel involved in the alliance, the prospects of materializing such objectives as security, prosperity, and stability are greatly enhanced.&nbsp;Egypt and Jordan might also be included in such a strategic alliance.


	Maj. General (Res.) Amos Gilad, executive director of Reichman University Institute for Policy and Strategy-IPS has written under the headline, “The American Withdrawal from Afghanistan: Lessons and Ramifications for Israel,”&nbsp;(August 2021), pointing out that the “American withdrawal from Afghanistan is a formative event whose projection strategically will reverberate for many years to come.&nbsp;Israel must prepare immediately, together with the Biden administration, for challenges that are around the corner – first and foremost, due to the ‘tail wind’ the Afghanistan withdrawal has created for extremist forces in the region; and parallel to this, leveraging&nbsp;<a href="https://www.runi.ac.il/en/research/ips/pages/insights/insights-23-8-21-ips.aspx" target="_blank">opportunities to upgrade relations and cooperation with Arab states</a>.”


	Maj. Gen. Gilad’s apparent conclusion confirms the idea that Israel, in coordination with the Biden administration, must carry out the vision of a Middle East Strategic Alliance anchored by Israel.

Can Israel Anchor a Defense Alliance of Moderate Arab States?

The Biden administration debacle in Afghanistan has convinced America’s enemies of the administration’s weakness and vulnerability. The timing of Vladimir

The Jewish state’s dream of warm peace with its Arab neighbors has eluded it for more than 72 years.&nbsp;In September 2020, President Donald Trump helped engineer the Abraham Accords between Israel, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates.&nbsp;The very treaty signing on the White House lawn projected human warmth, and signaled a warm peace.&nbsp;Subsequently, Sudan and Morocco joined the normalization of relations with Israel.


	It is true that peace, as opposed to war, came much earlier than September 2020. Israel signed a peace treaty with Egypt in 1979 and with Jordan in 1994.&nbsp;These peace treaties, however, were essentially between governments, coldly exchanging territory for peace.&nbsp;Israel gave up the entire Sinai Peninsula; it received a cold peace in return. The late Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak avoided visiting Israel.&nbsp;In his 30-year reign as Egypt’s dictator, he visited Israel only once, and only for three hours, to attend the funeral of the assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995.&nbsp;He did not encourage Israeli-Egyptian trade or tourism.&nbsp;


	Although Mubarak fulfilled the security commitments under the Camp David Accords, he deliberately perpetuated the cold peace. Mubarak was motivated by the desire to reduce Egypt’s massive military burden, and cement Egypt’s relationship with the US.&nbsp;He also sought to return Egypt to the bosom of the Arab world that expelled Egypt from the Arab League and leadership in the Arab world following Anwar Sadat’s Camp David Peace Accords with Israel. Israelis were not welcomed in Cairo, and the majority of the Egyptian population has been hostile to Israel and peace.&nbsp;The Egyptian media in particular has displayed frequent bursts of anti-Semitism. Israel’s consolation was that it didn’t have to allocate burdensome resources in manpower and treasure.


	King Hussein of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, unlike Mubarak, was well disposed toward peace with Israel. The strong presence of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan, and the majority Palestinian population in the country, placed Hussein in an odd position.&nbsp;As part of the peace treaty with Jordan, Israel recognized Jordan’s sovereignty over the Naharayim/Baqura area including the Peace Island, and the Tzofar/Al Ghamr area.&nbsp;Once again, Israelis rushed to visit Jordan, especially the majestic Petra, while Jordan sent workers to earn money in Israel (mostly in Eilat).


	The passing of King Hussein brought to power his son Abdullah II, whose mother was English. It compelled Abdullah to display a lukewarm attitude toward Israel, and oftentimes to be critical of Israel and supportive of the West Bank Palestinians.&nbsp;Ironically, Israel’s military prowess safeguards Jordan’s monarchy’s survival.


	In Egypt, Mubarak’s departure in February 2011 (as a result of the so-called Arab Spring) brought to power Mohammad Morsi in June 2012, the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood, and an ally of Hamas in Gaza. He was deposed by General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who was elected President in May 2014. According to Haisam Hassanein, an Associate Fellow at the Washington Institute, “Despite broadening official cooperation between Egypt and Israel, he (al-Sisi) is increasingly&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/sisis-anti-israel-rhetoric-new-speeches-old-problems" target="_blank"> embracing the old approach of telling Egyptians that Israel is the enemy.”</a>&nbsp;This tendency of vilifying Israel domestically, and allowing the Egyptian media to demonize Israel, is contrasted by increased cooperation between Egypt and Israel on combating terrorism in the Sinai Peninsula and handling Hamas in the Gaza Strip.&nbsp;In short, there has been no people-to-people relationship between Egyptians and Israelis.


	Until September 2020, the relationship between the Emiratis and Israel was concealed.&nbsp;Now, the open and warm interaction between Emiratis, Bahrainis, and Israelis is exceptional. Data shows that trade between the UAE and Israel jumped from $51 million in the seven months of 2020, to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/israel-s-trade-with-uae-and-other-arab-states-surg" target="_blank">$614 million</a>&nbsp;over the same period in 2021.&nbsp;According to figures cited by Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, trade between Israel and Arab countries in the Middle East and North Africa has dramatically accelerated in 2021, following normalization, and grew in the first seven months of 2021 by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/israel-s-trade-with-uae-and-other-arab-states-surg" target="_blank">234%.</a>


	On September 13, 2021, UAE Economy Minister Abdulla Bin Touq said that the UAE was projecting to grow economic ties with Israel to the tune of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/israel-s-trade-with-uae-and-other-arab-states-surg" target="_blank">$1 trillion</a>&nbsp;over the next decade.&nbsp;He pointed out that since normalization the UAE has signed over 60 Memorandums of Understanding with Israel, and is expecting an influx of trade over the next couple of years, primarily in defense, energy, and food security. He added, 
	"<a href="https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/israel-s-trade-with-uae-and-other-arab-states-surg" target="_blank">We have $500 to $700 million dollars in bilateral trade happening</a>, we have funds of billions of dollars that have been announced jointly between the two countries.&nbsp;We are moving into so many areas of economic opportunities."


	Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Company is inking a $1billion purchase of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/israel-s-trade-with-uae-and-other-arab-states-surg" target="_blank">22 percent</a>&nbsp;stake in Israel’s Delek Drilling’s East Mediterranean Tamar natural gas field.&nbsp;It will thus become the largest deal between the UAE and Israel. Turkey’s&nbsp;TRT World&nbsp;reported that, “Both countries have had&nbsp;<a href="https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/israel-s-trade-with-uae-and-other-arab-states-surg" target="_blank">high-level trade delegations</a>&nbsp;explore opportunities for investment in technology, aviation, education, telecom, and tourism over the past year.”&nbsp;And, in March 2021, the UAE announced a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/israel-s-trade-with-uae-and-other-arab-states-surg" target="_blank">$12 billion</a>&nbsp;investment fund for strategic sectors in Israel, including energy manufacturing, water, space, healthcare, and agri-tech.&nbsp;In addition, Emirati and Israeli ministers pledged military and defense cooperation.


	The relationship between Israel and the UAE isn’t limited to trade, tourism, and defense (Iran being a common threat to both countries as well as to Bahrain). There have been ongoing cultural exchanges. The Emirati and Bahraini governments are cultivating and supporting their growing Jewish communities. The Israeli pavilion in the Dubai Expo is a major attraction, and getting lots of Emirati visitors.


	In an opinion piece by Dr. Ali al-Nuaimi, Chairman of the Defense Affairs, Interior, and Foreign Relations Committee of the UAE Federal National Council, in Israel’s&nbsp;Ynet-News, writes: “<a href="https://www.ynetnews.com/article/hytrrwrrk" target="_blank">Normalization agreements are a bridge to a future where we find common solutions, not divisive wars, and it is time to take the narrative beyond the headlines in order to bring peace not only to the signatories, but to the entire region</a>.”&nbsp;Dr. al-Nuaimi who brought with him a delegation of UAE parliamentarians as guests of the Knesset, added, “I am excited to meet my fellow parliamentarians in the Knesset and build on the key role we have in regional and global diplomacy, far beyond the limitations of national borders and internal politics.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-695771" target="_blank">True diplomacy is found in people-to-people interactions</a>…”&nbsp;&nbsp;


	On February 3, 2022, Israel and Bahrain signed a security cooperation agreement, the first between Israel and a Gulf state.&nbsp;Israel’s Defense Minister Benny Gantz signed on behalf of Israel in Manama, Bahrain’s capital.&nbsp;He also held talks with King Hamed bin Isa al-Khalifa.&nbsp;Again, as with the UAE, cultural and inter-personal ties are very much part of the normalization with Bahrain.&nbsp;King Hamed Global Center is promoting religious freedom, interfaith dialogue, and peaceful co-existence, as it works with Israeli institutions.&nbsp;Bahrain has a small and historic Jewish community, and its former ambassador to the US, Houda Nonoo, is Jewish.


	The Bahraini foreign Minister and the Undersecretary for International Relations visited Israel.&nbsp;The latter’s four-day visit included visiting civil society organizations, universities and research institutes, as well as joining Israel’s Foreign Ministry director-general in scuba diving.&nbsp;Reuters&nbsp;reported that Israel expects&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-bahrain/israel-expects-220-million-in-non-defence-trade-with-bahrain-in-20" target="_blank">$220 million</a>&nbsp;in non-defense trade with Bahrain in 2021.


	Unlike Egypt and Jordan, whose wars with Israel created bad blood and mistrust on both sides, the UAE and Bahrain have never engaged in military action against Israel.&nbsp;Hence interpersonal relations are more natural.&nbsp;For Israel, that just might mean - on these realms - the kind of peace Israelis have prayed for. Time will tell.

Israel's Peace With Some Arab Neighbors?

The Jewish state’s dream of warm peace with its Arab neighbors has eluded it for more than 72 years.&nbsp;In September 2020, President Donald Trump helped

The Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson II, the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA), delivered a hateful and antisemitic sermon on the day one honors the memory of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The fact that Herbert Nelson II is black helped spare him criticism from the politically correct liberal media, who would normally castigate such hate-filled false and malicious libel if given by a white person. Nelson’s poisonous words were morally repugnant, factually false, and certainly worthy of collective denouncement.&nbsp;He stated: “The continued occupation in Palestine/Israel&nbsp;<a href="https://www.jpost.com/christian-news/article-694190" target="_blank">is 21st-century slavery</a>&nbsp;and should be abolished immediately.”&nbsp;He then added, “I would also hope that the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.jpost.com/christian-news/article-694190" target="_blank">Jewish community in the US would influence the call to join the US government in ending the immoral enslavement</a>.” &nbsp;


	This shameless blood-libel from a religious person can only serve to fuel antisemitism and division rather than bring about unity and amity, especially in today’s divided America.&nbsp;This spiritual leader chose to promote hate by inferring that Israeli-Jews are “enslavers.” Rather than focus on Martin Luther King’s great message of judging people “not by the color of their skin but by the content of one’s character,” was lost on Herbert Nelson II, who maligned the Jewish people and the Jewish state.&nbsp;Instead of calling for “love thy Neighbor,” or as Jesus might have said “love thy enemies,” Nelson insinuated that American Jews secretly control the moves of politicians and manipulate world events to their advantage.&nbsp;He must have taken a page from the antisemitic classic&nbsp;“The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,”&nbsp;the lie that wouldn’t die. &nbsp;


	In attempting to make a comparison between the legitimate case of black slavery in America and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Nelson simply showed his ignorance of historical facts and his bias toward Israel and Jews.&nbsp;Palestinian-Arabs are not slaves, while the Muslim invasion, conquest, and conversion of the hitherto Christians and Jews in Palestine (a name given by the Roman conquerors to the Land of Israel) did enslave the people living under its sword.&nbsp;More importantly, few other people have had as many opportunities to assert their self- determination as did the Palestinian-Arabs.&nbsp;In 1937, the Peel Commission offered the Palestinian-Arabs 75% of Mandatory Palestine.&nbsp;They rejected it and chose terror and murder of innocent civilians, both Jewish-Palestinians and Palestinians-Arab. In 1947, the UN Partition Plan offered the Palestinian-Arabs a state once again, but they chose instead to annihilate the nascent Jewish state that did accept the Partition Plan.&nbsp;From 1948-1967, Jordan occupied the West Bank, yet, the Palestinians never demanded self-determination and statehood from Jordan.&nbsp;In fact, Palestinian leaders demanded that the Arab states deny citizenship to the Palestinian refugees in their states, and preferred to keep their people in miserable refugee camps as a propaganda tool.&nbsp;At the same time, the Jewish state of Israel absorbed a much larger number of Jewish refugees from Arab lands where Jews lived for millenniums. &nbsp;


	Following the Oslo Accords in 1993, Yasser Arafat and Mahmud Abbas, both Presidents of the Palestinian Authority (PA)&nbsp;had several opportunities to establish their sovereign state - they declined.&nbsp;In July 2000, at the Camp David Summit presided over by US President Bill Clinton, with the participation of Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak,&nbsp;the Israeli PM offered Arafat far reaching concessions and Palestinian statehood in return for “an end to the conflict."&nbsp;Arafat rejected it and chose instead to launch the Second Intifada, a terror campaign that cost the lives of over 1,000 Israeli civilians.&nbsp;President Clinton held Arafat responsible for the failure of the talks.&nbsp;It prompted Clinton to say, “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Camp_David_Summit#:~:text=Clinton%20blamed%20Arafat%20after%20the,failure%20to%20come%20to%20an" target="_blank">I regret that in 2000, Arafat missed an opportunity to bring that nation (Palestine) into being.”</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;In 2008, Israeli PM Ehud Olmert was prepared to go even further than Barak; still, Abbas wouldn’t sign on a peace deal and accept statehood. &nbsp;


	Describing the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as enslavement is a modern-day blood libel, which historically led to violence against Jews, particularly as it came in the wake of a terrorist attack on a Texas synagogue.&nbsp;We can now add “slavery” to the list of demonstrably false libels that progressives have been repeating about Israel: “settler-colonialist,” “genocidal,” “killing and torturing children,” “apartheid,” and “ethnically cleansing” Palestinians. &nbsp;


	The Jewish state has in fact displayed incredible humanism in the face of Palestinian murderous terror.&nbsp;Bassem Eid, a former Palestinian Muslim refugee, and currently a human rights activist, has pointed out to this reporter that, “We Palestinians do not need an identity, we know who we are. We Palestinians need dignity, and that comes with being able to support our families.&nbsp;Israel has provided us with high paying jobs so that we are able to support our families.&nbsp;Conversely, the PA leadership (not to mention Hamas) cares only for itself, with little regard for the Palestinian people’s welfare.”&nbsp;He added, “The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and the “progressives” are hypocritical and destructive.&nbsp;They have destroyed economic opportunities for Palestinians by boycotting the Soda Stream Company, which provided Palestinians great opportunities and equal pay.” &nbsp;


	No mainline Protestant denomination is more clearly associated with anti-Israelism than the PCUSA.&nbsp;Some of its actions crossed the line into antisemitism, most notably its publication of “Zionism Unsettled,” which distorted Israeli and Jewish history.&nbsp;The American Jewish Committee (AJC), pointed out that “<a href="http://ajc.org/news/the-presbyterian-church-has-been-hijacked-by-anti-israel-activists" target="_blank">The sheer volume of anti-Israel resolutions discussed and debated reveal a deep animus (against Israel) that needs to be called out</a>.” Rabbi Noam Marans, AJC’s director of interreligious relations continued, “Within the PCUSA, a small but vocal minority of activists have managed to keep anti-Israelism on the agenda through eight general assemblies (GA) spanning 14 years. This faction has its own committee, dubbed #12- Middle East issues,&nbsp;<a href="http://ajc.org/news/the-presbyterian-church-has-been-hijacked-by-anti-israel-activists" target="_blank">allowing a concentration of Israel-denunciatory time and energy through the weeklong GA</a>."


	The late PCUSA pastor, Rev. Dr. Bill Harter, once explained to this reporter that the PCUSA missionaries who go to the Middle East return to the Louisville, Kentucky headquarters of the PCUSA having adopted the Palestinian narrative.&nbsp;Being posted to the headquarters they find nothing better to occupy their energy than to generate anti-Israel resolutions.&nbsp;Rev. Dr. Bill Harter was the co-founder of the Presbyterians for Middle East Peace (PFMEP).&nbsp;While the Stated Clerk and the PCUSA headquarters have adopted an anti-Israel and anti-Jewish posture, the majority of local presbyteries throughout the US have close and friendly relations with the Jewish communities in their area, and oppose the false and hateful words of the Stated Clerk, and the anti-Israel resolutions.&nbsp;On its website, the PFMEP has in fact, “Condemned the Stated Clerk’s statement on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day <a>for being offensive to the Jewish community…</a>”


	Instead of apologizing, Herbert Nelson II made assertions without merit or fact.&nbsp;He charged that Israel confiscated Palestinian land in Judea and Samaria.&nbsp;The fact is that the Israeli High Court of Justice has gone out of its way to protect private Palestinian land.&nbsp;However, Israel has every right to use state/public land.&nbsp;Regarding his charge of “Israeli barriers to access Palestinian holy places of worship,” Israel erected barriers to prevent Palestinian terrorists from murdering Israeli citizens.&nbsp;Herbert Nelson has failed to cite a single case of innocent Palestinian worshippers denied access to the al-Aqsa mosque or any other place of worship.&nbsp;Religious freedom in Israel is sacrosanct, which was not the case under Jordanian rule.

Top Presbyterian Church Official Delivers Anti-Semitic Sermon on MLK Day

The Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson II, the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA), delivered a hateful and antisemitic sermon

Toni Nissi is an old friend and a proud Lebanese patriot.&nbsp;While being an engineer by profession, he has devoted his time and energy contributing to the betterment of his country.&nbsp;Toni is President of the Committee for the UN Security Council Resolutions on Lebanon, and Secretary General of the Council for the Cedar Revolution. Toni Nissi is an experienced lobbyist, skilled in International Relations and advocacy.&nbsp;He works on many sensitive files with the UN Security Council (UNSC), the US, and the European Union.&nbsp;He lobbied for the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act, and UNSC Resolutions 1559, 1680, and 1701.&nbsp;He is currently the Vice President of the International Christian Union in charge of Middle Eastern affairs. He resides with his family in East Beirut.&nbsp;


	Joseph Puder (JP): To what extent do Lebanese feel their connection to Lebanon's Phoenician past?&nbsp;


	Toni Nissi&nbsp;(TN):&nbsp;Lebanon used to be a part of Phoenicia for a long period of time.&nbsp;Perhaps the closest community to be identified with the Phoenicians are the Aramaic Christians.&nbsp;These days Aramaic Christians have several organizations working on teaching the Syriac language and rehabilitating the Aramaic heritage.&nbsp;However, as you know, Lebanon today is a multicultural and multi-confessional country and four years ago it was declared by the United Nations as the Academy of the Civilizations Dialogue.&nbsp;&nbsp; 
	JP:&nbsp;Would you please&nbsp;describe to our readers the extensive control Hezbollah has on Lebanon?


	TN: Hezbollah is controlling the political and military decisions of all the Lebanese institutions by imposing its project, its ideology, and its will on all the official decisions.&nbsp;The Foreign Affairs Ministry is serving Hezbollah’s project and is reflecting Hezbollah’s will.&nbsp;As long as Lebanon is unable to form a government or elect a president against the will of Hezbollah, Lebanon is no longer sovereign. Hezbollah controls such crucial decisions as war and peace.&nbsp;Hezbollah protects the corrupt people inside and outside the government by virtue of its power.&nbsp;Hezbollah, as we know for fact, is not only a militia that follows Iran, it is in essence Iran in control of Lebanon.&nbsp;Hezbollah’s Secretary General&nbsp;has confirmed on several occasions that is, in fact, the case announcing that Iran’s funding, its weapons, and its orders come from Iran, and specifically from Ayatollah Khamenei.&nbsp;


	JP: Are the Saudis successful at countering Tehran's influence?&nbsp;


	TN:&nbsp;&nbsp;Lebanon, by virtue of receiving a constant flow of cash, sophisticated arms from Iran, and given the corrupt political figures who sold out, has provided Hezbollah with influence and power. Lebanon is therefore under direct Iranian occupation.&nbsp;This state of affairs is opposed by most of the Lebanese people, and it is imposed on them against their will.&nbsp;The Lebanese people are now going to the streets holding the Lebanese flags with one slogan written on the red area of the Lebanese flag, which is: "Iran out."&nbsp;


	Unfortunately, the Lebanese people will not be able to defeat the Iranian occupation alone. Hezbollah’s role of destabilizing the region will end up by transforming it to be a part of the Iranian Islamic Revolution.&nbsp;The Lebanese people are powerless to change that.&nbsp;It is the duty of the free world, and the friends of Lebanon everywhere, as well as the impacted countries, to form one front to defeat the Iranian occupation. We are seeing that the Lebanese people have been left to their destiny - to Hezbollah’s influence.&nbsp;Lebanon was abandoned by their supposed friends and allies including Saudi Arabia. We are watching the Arab world and the international community retreat, as if they are accepting the dominant role of Hezbollah, and not hearing all the voices asking for their help&nbsp;to be saved from the Iranian revolution.&nbsp;&nbsp;


	JP: The PLO triggered the Lebanese civil war, and Hamas is now seeking to open a new front against Israel in Southern Lebanon.&nbsp;How are the Lebanese Armed Forces and the government reacting to that?&nbsp;


	TN:&nbsp;Under the Iranian occupation all the terrorist groups in the Middle East including Hamas may find a safe haven in Lebanon, controlled by Hezbollah. Hamas has existed in the Palestinian Lebanese refugee camps for years now.&nbsp;Iran has decided to bring non-Lebanese militias into Lebanon, as well as train them. This policy is being implemented by Hezbollah, which is not only Iran’s proxy in Lebanon but throughout the world.&nbsp;And if you look at what is happening inside Lebanon you will find every Iranian militia and proxy such as the Houthis being facilitated.&nbsp;The Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and many others are on Lebanese soil.&nbsp;The Lebanese government is being directed by Hezbollah, and it complies with its wishes and demands.&nbsp;When Hezbollah wishes it, the government will stop functioning, as we have seen lately. The Lebanese army, that we Lebanese respect and admire,&nbsp;acts according to the government’s decisions.&nbsp;That's why we believe that the army itself will never act without direct orders from the government. As long as we are under Iranian occupation the Lebanese army has its hands tied.&nbsp;


	JP:&nbsp;&nbsp;Many in the international community consider Lebanon a failed state. Do you agree with that description?&nbsp;


	TN:&nbsp;If you look at the definition and the requirements of the failed state as described by the rules and regulations of the United Nations (UN), you will discover in no time, and without any effort that Lebanon nowadays is a failed state.&nbsp;We actually held several conferences and have written several papers and memorandums asking the UN to declare Lebanon as a failed state and to take the proper legal actions based on this declaration. It seems, however, that for now, the free world and Lebanon’s friends haven't decided yet to take the responsibility for such a declaration.&nbsp;&nbsp;


	JP:&nbsp;In your estimations, what are the prospects for a peace treaty between Israel and Lebanon?&nbsp;


	TN: I believe that the Middle East is changing and that Lebanon may be a part of the Abraham Accords.&nbsp;Lebanon and Israel have to start by the full implementation of the UN Security Council Resolution 1701 including getting back to the 1949 agreement between Lebanon and Israel and finding a solution to the land border and the Maritime border demarcation.&nbsp;I believe that both people in Israel and Lebanon deserve to live in peace and prosperity as full sovereign nations.&nbsp;


	JP: How can the US and the free world help Lebanon?&nbsp;


	TN: The free world needs to listen to the daily cries, demonstrations, and sacrifices of the Lebanese people, and help them regain their sovereignty by supporting the Lebanese people in implementing the National Pact. The National Pact is based on Lebanon’s neutrality, through an international conference that would lead to: A) UNSC resolutions on Lebanon, B) Resolving the situation with the Palestinian and Syrian refugees, C) Economic reform, D) Fully monitoring and inspection of elections in Lebanon.

How the Free World Can Help Lebanon

Toni Nissi is an old friend and a proud Lebanese patriot.&nbsp;While being an engineer by profession, he has devoted his time and energy contributing to the

Hamas is not only a menace to Israel through its enclave in the Gaza Strip; it is also a threat to Lebanon’s stability and its future as a sovereign state.&nbsp;Along with Hezbollah, Hamas is doing Iran’s bidding against Israel along the border and preventing the Lebanese authorities from asserting full control over the Lebanese state.&nbsp;If Hamas’ activities aren’t curbed, it will lead to a devastating war with Israel that Lebanon cannot afford.


	Last month (December 10, 2021), a huge explosion occurred in the Burj el-Shemali Palestinian refugee camp adjacent to the ancient city of Tyre in southern Lebanon.&nbsp;The fire from the explosion reached a weapons depot belonging to Hamas, which contained assorted arms and ammunition.&nbsp;Hamas quickly closed the area and prevented the Lebanese security forces from having access to the site of the explosion, as well as keeping Palestinian factions from investigating the cause of the explosion.&nbsp;&nbsp;According to Lebanon’s&nbsp;al-Nahar, December 11, 2021, following the explosion the Lebanese army cordoned off the area outside the camp but refrained from entering it. In thwarting Lebanese authorities from inquiring into the explosion, it seems Hamas is repeating Hezbollah’s tactics of making a mockery of Lebanese sovereign authority.&nbsp;Hezbollah has obstructed the investigation into the September 2020 massive explosion in the Port of Beirut warehouses, which it owns.&nbsp;In both the Tyre and Beirut explosions, the damage to humans and property was severe.


	Hamas’ habitual disregard for human lives in the Gaza Strip has repeated itself in the Burj el-Shemali refugee camp in Tyre.&nbsp;In both cases, civilians have been used as “human shields.” The fact that Hamas placed its arms depot in the heart of a residential area proves the point.&nbsp;Following the funeral of a Hamas leader and engineer Hizma Ibrahim Shanin, who died as a result of the explosion, a firefight broke out between Hamas and Fatah armed men, resulting in the death of several Hamas operatives.


	While Hezbollah operates along the Israeli-Lebanese border in clear contravention of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 that called for the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) to deploy along the border, Hamas has now been firing rockets at Israel from the border area with Hezbollah’s apparent compliance, if not encouragement.&nbsp;The Lebanese civilian and military authorities have been unable or unwilling to disarm the various terror groups including Hamas, and are looking the other way on Hamas’ operations along the border.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;


	The Lebanese public has long demanded the disarmament of all militias and terror groups in the country, including naturally Hamas, as well as Hezbollah. The Taif Agreement of 1989 stipulated the following: “<a href="https://peacemaker.un.org/sites/peacemaker.un.org/files/LB_891022_Taif%20Accords.pdf" target="_blank">Disbanding of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias shall be announced.&nbsp;The militias’ weapons shall be delivered to the State of Lebanon within a period of 6 months</a>,&nbsp;beginning with the approval of the national accord charter.” The Taif Accord had clearly not been enforced. While all other militias handed over their heavy arms, Hezbollah and the Palestinians did not.&nbsp;As a result, Hezbollah today exerts full political and military control in the Land of the Cedars due to its weaponry being far more sophisticated and numerous than that of the LAF (courtesy of Iran).&nbsp;In addition, many of the LAF soldiers are Hezbollah supporters.&nbsp;That makes the Shiite cleric Hassan Nasrallah, the Secretary-General of Hezbollah, not Lebanon’s constitutional President Michel Aoun, the real power in the country.


	The problem of Lebanon’s lack of sovereignty has added to the already severe economic and political crisis in the country.&nbsp;The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.unicef.org/lebanon/palestinian-programme" target="_blank">192,000</a>&nbsp;Palestinian refugees in Lebanon have lived there for at least 70-years.&nbsp;The Palestinian leaderships through the decades have demanded that the Arab host countries deny the Palestinian refugees permanent status, let alone citizenship. It was a merciless act of using propaganda by the Palestinian and Arab leaders against the Jewish state, at the expense of Palestinian families.&nbsp;In Lebanon today, the Sunni-Muslims would like to enfranchise the Palestinians as full citizens. After all, they share the same culture, language, and religion.&nbsp;Christians oppose that because it would tip the demographic balance in the confessional system of governance, in favor of Muslims. Some have suggested that Lebanon send the Palestinians off elsewhere in the Arab world just as Kuwait did following the Gulf War.&nbsp;


	The Lebanese have good reasons for getting rid of the Palestinians. Yasser Arafat and his Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), having been ejected from Jordan in 1970, following their attempted takeover of the kingdom, have subsequently occupied Southern Lebanon and made it into “Fatahland” (named after Arafat’s Fatah faction) -&nbsp;a state-within-a-state.&nbsp;By accepting the 1969 Cairo Agreement, Lebanon legitimized the PLO, granting it control over Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and enabled the PLO terrorists to attack Israel. The 1982 war between Israel and Arafat’s terrorist organization helped Lebanon get rid of the menace called the Fatah that was greatly responsible for the savage Lebanese civil war (1975-1990) that killed over&nbsp;<a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Lebanese-Civil-War" target="_blank">100,000</a>&nbsp;and displaced over&nbsp;<a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Lebanese-Civil-War" target="_blank">1,000,000</a>.&nbsp;Arafat and his gang of terrorists moved to Tunisia, but the many Palestinian non-combatants that remained should have been granted citizenship and adequate living or sent along with Arafat to Tunisia.


	The Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon have become an extended arm of Hezbollah and its paymaster - the Islamic Republic of Iran.&nbsp;Hamas’ brand of political Islam coupled with its close identification with the Iranian Revolution has made it part of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) tool in the region both inside the Gaza Strip and Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and Syria.&nbsp;Moreover, the explosion at the Burj el-Shemali Palestinian refugee camp has revealed the progress Hamas is making in constructing a military-terrorist base in Lebanon. Hamas aims to create another front from which to attack when it next provokes a war with Israel.


	A report by the&nbsp;Alma Research and Education Center&nbsp;pointed out that Hamas has “<a href="https://israel-alma.org/2021/10/11/exposing-hamass-growing-front-in-lebanon-infrastructure-and-activity/" target="_blank">Two operational units in Lebanon</a>&nbsp;- el-Shimali and Khalid Ali.&nbsp;With the assistance of the Construction Bureau, the two operational units recruit members, train them in specialized combat skills such as sniping, anti-tank missile attacks, operating drones, and more.&nbsp;The units also develop and produce their own weapons – rockets, defensive drones, and small unmanned underwater vehicles.&nbsp;They set up operational cells while preparing attack plans against Israel.”&nbsp;The&nbsp;Report&nbsp;added, “<a href="https://israel-alma.org/2021/10/11/exposing-hamass-growing-front-in-lebanon-infrastructure-and-activity/" target="_blank">Hamas’ activities in Lebanon occur with the assistance and supervision of the Iranian Quds Force</a>.”


	To preserve its security and sovereignty, the Lebanese authorities must curtail Hamas’ activities in Lebanon before the latter involves Lebanon in an unwanted war with Israel.&nbsp;The consequences of such a war will doom all efforts to resuscitate the Lebanese economy and its political life.&nbsp;

Hamas in Lebanon: Another Arm of Iran

Hamas is not only a menace to Israel through its enclave in the Gaza Strip; it is also a threat to Lebanon’s stability and its future as a sovereign state.

Twelve European Union (EU) members condemned Israel for housing expansion in the West Bank, which they claim jeopardizes the two-state solution.&nbsp; Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, and Sweden issued a joint statement last October in which they expressed their opposition to Israeli government approval of constructing 3,000 housing units in area C of the West Bank (Judea and Samaria), as well as 1,600 units for Palestinians in the same area.&nbsp;&nbsp; The EU claim is that the housing units for Jews infringe on the so-called “occupied Palestinian territory.” Yet, area C has been designated by the Oslo Accords to be administered by Israel, whereas areas A and B in the West Bank are administered by the Palestinian Authority (PA).&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;


	The term “occupied Palestinian territory” is false and misleading to begin with.&nbsp; Until Israel captured the West Bank, Jordan had occupied the territory and killed and expelled all the Jewish residents in the Old City of Jerusalem and the Etzion Bloc.&nbsp; When the Arab-Palestinians rejected the 1947 UN Partition Plan, they forfeited any claim to the West Bank, which was allotted to them under UN Partition Plan.&nbsp; Jordan then occupied the most of the area designated for the Palestinian state. &nbsp;Moreover, it was not only Arab-Palestinian rejection of the Partition Plan, it was also the aggression the Arab-Palestinians committed against the nascent Jewish state that disqualified them as being an “occupied Palestinian territory.” It ended up being “Jordanian occupied territory.”


	Another assertion made by the joint statement of the twelve EU state foreign ministers was, “We reiterate our strong opposition of <a href="https://www.auswaerliges-amt.de/en/newsroom/news/settlements-israel/2492586">settlement expansion across the Occupied Palestinian Territories, which violates international law and undermines efforts for a two-state solution</a>.”&nbsp; UN Security Council Resolution 242 called for “territory for peace (but specifically not all territories).”&nbsp; Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel and received in return the entire Sinai Peninsula, along with the Abu Rodes oil fields, and the magnificent Sharm el-Sheikh.&nbsp; In the West Bank, however, Israeli-Jews have as much right to settle as Palestinians-Arabs do.


	Most EU states consider settlement construction a violation of international law.&nbsp; The Trump administration announced in 2018 that it did not consider this to be the case, and backed Israel’s claim.&nbsp; Jerusalem rejects the EU position that the territories are occupied, pointing out that the West Bank territories were captured from Jordan in a defensive war.


	In a New York Times opinion piece (September 19, 1983), by the late Eugene Rostow, who served as dean of Yale University Law School, and Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs in President Lyndon Johnson’s administration, he wrote: “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1983/09/19/opinion/l-israel-s-settlement-right-is-unassailable-170524.html">Israel has an unassailable legal right to establish settlements in the West Bank.”</a>&nbsp; While Eugene Rostow took part in formulating Resolution 242, the current crop of EU foreign ministers were not involved in it, and are ignorant of its full meaning.&nbsp;&nbsp;


	The notion of Israel’s construction of new housing units in area C of the West bank jeopardizing the two-state solution is simply bunk! Neither Mahmoud Abbas, President of the PA, nor the majority of the Palestinian people are ready or willing to negotiate a solution or establish the institutions that would advance Palestinian statehood.&nbsp;


	David Pollock of the Washington Institute (February 25, 2020), headlined his story: “Palestinian Majority Rejects Two-State Solution, But Backs Tactical Compromises.”&nbsp;Citing a recent survey showing that, “<a href="https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/palestinian-majority-rejects-two-state-solution-backs-tactical-compromises" target="_blank">Most Palestinian respondents now say they prefer ‘regaining all of historical Palestine’ over permanent peace with Israel</a>.”&nbsp;At the same time, Palestinian majorities in both the West Bank and Gaza voice much more pragmatic views about “<a href="https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/palestinian-majority-rejects-two-state-solution-backs-tactical-compromises" target="_blank">the impracticality of a one-state solution</a>, the return of refugees, or armed struggle against Israel.” When asked “What is your personal opinion about what should be the top Palestinian National Priority during the coming five years?” The survey showed in 2017, 30% said, regaining all of historical Palestine from the river to the sea. In 2018, 47% chose the same answer, and in 2020,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/palestinian-majority-rejects-two-state-solution-backs-tactical-compromises" target="_blank">66%</a>&nbsp;repeated that priority…


	Both Palestinian leaders Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas declined to reach an agreement with Israel on a two-state solution, fearing assassination by fellow Palestinians.&nbsp; Neither of these two was capable of nor wanted to run a democratic, orderly, and functioning state.&nbsp; Arafat enjoyed his role as a terrorist-revolutionary with the aim of destroying the Jewish state.&nbsp; Abbas gave the appearance of a more moderate leader, but he was and still is a mere figurehead, who enjoys hobnobbing with world leaders, and receives donations from western states, especially from EU states.


	In July 2000 US president Bill Clinton arranged the second Camp David Summit.&nbsp; He invited Yasser Arafat, Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) Chairman and President of the PA, and Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Barak, ostensibly to end once and for all the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.&nbsp; Barak’s offers to Arafat were generous by any standard, as confirmed by President Clinton. Historian Benny Morris summed up Barak’s proposals in a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/may/23/israel3">British Guardian</a> piece (May 23, 2002): The proposals included the establishment of a demilitarized Palestinian state on some 92% of the West Bank and 100% of the Gaza Strip, with some territorial compensation for the Palestinians from pre-1967 Israeli territory; the dismantling of most of the settlements and the concentration of the bulk of the settlers inside the 8% of the West Bank to be annexed by Israel; the establishment of the Palestinian capital in east Jerusalem, in which some Arab neighborhoods would become sovereign Palestinian territory and others would enjoy "functional autonomy"; Palestinian sovereignty over half the Old City of Jerusalem (the Muslim and Christian quarters) and "custodianship," though not sovereignty, over the Temple Mount; a return of refugees to the prospective Palestinian state though with no "right of return" to Israel proper; and the organization by the international community of a massive aid program to facilitate the refugees' rehabilitation.


	Arafat said no. Enraged, President Clinton banged on the table and said: "<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/may/23/israel3">You are leading your people and the region to a catastrophe</a>." A formal Palestinian rejection of the proposals reached the Americans the next day. The summit sputtered on for a few days more but to all intents and purposes it was over.


	Israel’s PM Ehud Olmert 2008 proposal to Abbas was even more generous.&nbsp; Olmert proposed that Israel retain 6.3% of the territory in order to keep control of major Jewish settlements. He offered to compensate the Palestinians with Israeli land equivalent to <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/abbas-admits-he-rejected-2008-peace-offer-from-olmert/">5.8</a>% of the West Bank, along with a link to the Gaza Strip — another territory meant to be part of Palestine. Olmert offered to connect the West Bank with Gaza through <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/magazine/13Israel-t.html">a 25-mile</a> tunnel, and admit into Israel <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/magazine/13Israel-t.html">5,000</a> Palestinians. He offered to withdraw from Arab neighborhoods of east Jerusalem and place the Old City — home to Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy sites — under international control. &nbsp;


	The EU in its self-righteous hypocrisy ignores the crux of the problem, which is the Palestinians refusal to negotiate a deal and end the conflict.&nbsp; Instead, the EU twelve have provided massive aid to the Palestinians. When it comes to Israeli-Jews however, the EU has deliberately overlooked the human side, housing expansion that is meant to accommodate growing families.&nbsp;


	&nbsp;

Europe’s Condemnation of Israel - and Double Standards

Twelve European Union (EU) members condemned Israel for housing expansion in the West Bank, which they claim jeopardizes the two-state solution.&nbsp; Belgium

In an unprecedented meeting on December 28, 2021, at the private residence of Benny Gantz in Rosh Haayin (central Israel), Israel’s Defense Minister hosted Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmud Abbas. Gantz approved significant trust-building concessions to the Palestinians.&nbsp;Aiming at bolstering the failing fortunes of the PA and Abu Mazen’s in particular, against the increasing influence of Hamas in the West Bank. Gantz approved the addition of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.eurasiareview.com/02012022-what-did-mahmoud-abbas-get-from-meeting-benny-gantz-oped/" target="_blank">600</a>&nbsp;entry permits to Israel for Palestinian businessmen, as well as Palestinian vehicles. Dozens of Palestinian officials will receive VIP permits.&nbsp;Moreover, Gantz agreed to provide the PA with advanced tax payments collected from Palestinians working in Israel worth NIS (New Israeli Shekels) 100 million, or&nbsp;<a href="https://www.eurasiareview.com/02012022-what-did-mahmoud-abbas-get-from-meeting-benny-gantz-oped/" target="_blank">$32 million</a>.


	Palestinians in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) and the Gaza Strip cheered the granting of the status approval to some&nbsp;<a href="https://www.eurasiareview.com/02012022-what-did-mahmoud-abbas-get-from-meeting-benny-gantz-oped/" target="_blank">6,000</a>&nbsp;Palestinian residents of the West Bank, and 3,500 Gaza residents who appear on the PA’s Population Registry.&nbsp;It means that Israel will officially recognize the legal status of thousands of Palestinians, allowing them free movement within the West Bank.


	After years of sheer contempt for Mahmud Abbas and the PA, both in Gaza and the West Bank, Abu Mazen’s stature has risen significantly as a result of “extracting” the above concessions from Gantz. Thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza celebrated with Abbas’ (Abu Mazen’s) picture in hand and a paper confirming their new status.&nbsp;Abbas finally got his cheers.&nbsp;Unfortunately for Abbas, as Bassem Eid, former Palestinian refugee and human rights activist said to me, “the only ones that ‘voted’ for Abbas are his wife and his sons…”


	The state of the Palestinian economy in the West Bank and Gaza is on ‘life support,’ with the political situation dismal as well. There is little trust in the leadership among the majority of Palestinians in both Hamas-ruled Gaza and the PA. With corruption, nepotism, absence of the rule-of-law, and basic freedoms, Palestinians are ambivalent about a Palestinian State.&nbsp;In Israel, “around the corner” they see prosperity, freedom, and advancement.&nbsp;An Israeli TV Channel 11 broadcast featured a Gaza resident telling a reporter that he “would forgo a $100 donation from the Qatari government for a permit to work in Israel…”


	Resurrecting Abbas’ fortunes won’t change the realities in the PA. It is incapable of providing its people with basic needs, and it lacks the ability to govern.&nbsp;Gaza, under the terrorist group Hamas, is in far worse condition.&nbsp;According to the India-based&nbsp;Business Standard&nbsp;(December 29, 2021) headline “Unemployment rate in Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip exceeds&nbsp;<a href="https://www.business-standard.com/article/international/unemployment-rate-in-hamas-ruled-gaza-exceeds-50-palesti" target="_blank">50%:</a>&nbsp;Palestinian official says.”&nbsp;The poverty rate in the Gaza Strip has grown to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.business-standard.com/article/international/unemployment-rate-in-hamas-ruled-gaza-exceeds-50-palesti" target="_blank">64%</a>, and the rate of food instability among Gaza Strip households has reached&nbsp;<a href="https://www.business-standard.com/article/international/unemployment-rate-in-hamas-ruled-gaza-exceeds-50-palesti" target="_blank">69%</a>.&nbsp;Hamas is committed to the destruction of the Jewish state, but its leadership is indifferent to the suffering of its Gaza residents.&nbsp;Since it took over the Strip from Fatah and the PA in 2007, conditions have sharply deteriorated.


	The Palestinians are divided into two separate entities, and neither is ready to negotiate a two-state solution.&nbsp;Abbas and the PA lacking the backing of their own people have no desire to be a partner for peace.&nbsp;Hamas, supported by the radical Shiite Islamic Republic of Iran, and the Muslim Brotherhood leaning regime of Qatar, have incentivized Hamas to focus on instability with periodic terror attacks on Israeli population centers.&nbsp;The results are misery and suffering for the people of Gaza and Israel.


	The Palestinian leadership's unwillingness to compromise with Israel, and its insistence on rights to “all of Palestine,” means a deadlock with no foreseeable solution to the two-state formula.&nbsp;Many Palestinians have already given up on the notion of an independent Palestinian state, and some are advocating a “one state” solution, that is joining the Jewish state in order to eradicate it demographically.&nbsp;This would be a solution that no Israeli politician or layperson would accept.&nbsp;A bi-national state would never work, and it didn’t work under the British Mandate, resulting in endless bloodshed, and chaos.&nbsp;It is for this reason that the British Peel Commission in 1937 resolved that Palestine should be divided into two states: Arab and Jewish.&nbsp;The Jews of Palestine accepted a tiny portion (less than 25% of the land) while the Arab-Palestinians rejected the commission’s recommendation, choosing the murderous way of Hitler’s ally,&nbsp;Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem.&nbsp;In 1947, the Arab-Palestinians repeated their rejection of a two-state solution, with the same intransigence of “all of Palestine to be ours,” by violence if necessary, but no compromise.&nbsp;This attitude has persisted in Arab leadership to this day.


	David Pollock of the Washington Institute (February 25, 2020), headlined his story: “Palestinian Majority Rejects Two-State Solution, But Backs Tactical Compromises.”&nbsp;Citing a recent survey showing that, “<a href="https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/palestinian-majority-rejects-two-state-solution-backs-tactical-compromises" target="_blank">Most Palestinian respondents now say they prefer ‘regaining all of historical Palestine’ over permanent peace with Israel</a>.”&nbsp;At the same time, Palestinian majorities in both the West Bank and Gaza voice much more pragmatic views about “<a href="https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/palestinian-majority-rejects-two-state-solution-backs-tactical-compromises" target="_blank">the impracticality of a one-state solution</a>, the return of refugees, or armed struggle against Israel.” When asked “What is your personal opinion about what should be the top Palestinian National Priority during the coming five years?” The survey showed in 2017, 30% said, regaining all of historical Palestine from the river to the sea. In 2018, 47% chose the same answer, and in 2020,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/palestinian-majority-rejects-two-state-solution-backs-tactical-compromises" target="_blank">66%</a>&nbsp;repeated that priority…


	In a&nbsp;Foreign Policy&nbsp;magazine piece (October 15, 2021), Jordanian entrepreneur and writer, Hasan Ismaik argues that,&nbsp;<a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/10/15/jordan-palestine-israel-annex-west-bank-israel-occupation/" target="_blank">Amman should re-annex the West Bank</a>&nbsp;to end Israel’s occupation, bring peace and prosperity, and give Palestinians democratic rights.”&nbsp;A voluntary confederation between Jordan and the West Bank Palestinians is the most natural and organic solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.&nbsp;First, precedence already exists.&nbsp;Between 1948 and 1967 Jordan occupied the West Bank and ruled it as a federation of sorts.&nbsp;Second, the two parts share the same culture, language (Arabic), and religion (Sunni-Islam). Close familial relations exist between the two entities. About two-thirds of Jordan’s population is already Palestinian, and Jordan’s Queen Rania is the daughter of Palestinian parents.&nbsp;Third, Jordan was originally part of the British Palestine Mandate.&nbsp;To accommodate Abdullah, the elder son of the Sharif of Mecca, and as payback for the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans during WWI, Winston Churchill (British Colonial Secretary at the time) cut off Eastern Palestine to create the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Fourth, Jordan’s 35,000 square miles will provide the space and opportunity for the densely populated West Bank Palestinians.&nbsp;Aqaba and Jordan’s 16 miles of shoreline along the Red Sea would give the landlocked West Bank Palestinians an outlet to the open sea.


	Although US President Biden and America’s Western allies are hell bent on the two-state solution, it appears that the Palestinians themselves, Mahmud Abbas included, aren’t too keen on the idea.&nbsp;A one-state solution is a non-starter, for reasons underlined above.&nbsp;In particular, such a solution would lead to conflict and a bloodbath between Arabs and Jews, and it would end the 2000-year yearning of the Jewish people for a refuge and home for the Jewish people, who are still enduring worldwide antisemitism.


	Short of maintaining the status-quo, the only natural, organic and viable solution is the idea of a confederation.&nbsp;In time, Israel might even join such an arrangement.

A Confederation Between Jordan and West Bank Palestinians Offers an Organic Solution

In an unprecedented meeting on December 28, 2021, at the private residence of Benny Gantz in Rosh Haayin (central Israel), Israel’s Defense Minister hosted

The American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) convention in Chicago on November 25-27, 2021 with the slogan titled “On the Road to Free Palestine,” was a clear exhibition of unbridled antisemitism in the guise of anti-Zionism.&nbsp;In advertising the conference the organizers wrote, “(We) will uplift and celebrate all of the Palestinian rights success stories that have occurred since our last time gathering, even as we mourn the Palestinians killed in the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.palestineconvention.org/" target="_blank">latest Israeli massacre</a>&nbsp;in May, and to fight against the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.palestineconvention.org/" target="_blank">colonial expansion emptying our homes and filling them with colonizers in East Jerusalem and all of Palestine</a>.”


	Aside from the antisemitism so amply displayed in the AMP’s convention speeches, the lies and distortions of verifiable facts on its website are simply astounding.&nbsp;The fact that the AMP and its Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) speakers at the convention implored the attendees not to associate with any Jewish organization in interfaith or community settings is a perfect example of intolerance, bigotry, racism, and antisemitism to boot.&nbsp;Apparently, the AMP is fearful that their fellow Muslim audiences might be swayed by the true facts &nbsp;of events in the Middle East. Nihad &nbsp;Awad's&nbsp;speech,&nbsp;CAIR’s executive director,&nbsp;presents a false and particularly racist portrayal of the Jewish people and money as the source of a so-called "Islamophobic network" out to victimize Muslims. His claim remarkably mirrors the Nazi claim of German victimization at the hands of moneyed Jews.&nbsp;


	It has been said that “the best defense is an aggressive offense.”&nbsp;Whenever facts are being presented that implicate Muslims, the AMP and its fellow travelers resort to the charge of Islamophobia. The AMP and CAIR deny the fact that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) are terrorist organizations, which they support. They distort the fact that Muslim terrorists perpetrated the most heinous terror attack on American soil known as 9/11.&nbsp;They obfuscate the fact that the Islamic State or ISIS, in the name of Islam practiced ethnic cleansing against the Yazidi minority and Christians in Iraq.&nbsp;Of course, not all or even most Muslims are terrorists or racists, but it puts a serious question mark on the ideology and raison d’être of organizations such as AMP and CAIR who support Hamas and PIJ, whose reasons for being are the destruction of the Jewish state and its people. Their objective is the ethnic cleansing of the Jews in Israel.


	The AMP and CAIR are unlikely to inform their constituents that Hamas and PIJ in the Gaza Strip attacked Israeli population centers unprovoked, with over 4,000 missiles, aiming to kill innocent Israeli civilians.&nbsp;The AMP, to inflame its supporters used the libelous lie of a “massacre in Gaza,” which goes against any norm of factual truth.&nbsp;Although attacked by Hamas and the PIJ, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), more than any other army, took extraordinary caution not to hit innocent civilians.&nbsp;It dropped leaflets to warn Gaza civilians of an impending attack thus endangering its own soldiers. The IDF specifically targeted Hamas and PIJ operatives, seeking to avoid collateral damage and civilian casualties.&nbsp;Hamas and PIJ on the other hand used Palestinian civilians as “human shields,” which accounted for civilian casualties in last May’s war in Gaza.&nbsp;Moreover, Hamas and PIJ misfired rockets in the Gaza Strip, killing numerous Palestinian civilians. The&nbsp;BBC-News&nbsp;(August 12, 2021) reported that “More than 4,360 unguided rockets and mortars were fired (by Hamas), killing 13 people there (in Israel).&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-58183968" target="_blank">Some fell short killing Palestinians in Gaza.”</a>


	The equally false and libelous charge by the AMP of “colonizing east Jerusalem and Palestine” is another distortion of reality.&nbsp;The AMP conveniently ignores the UN Partition Plan of November 1947 that ended the British Mandate in Palestine.&nbsp;It gave the Palestinians the opportunity for statehood and self-determination.&nbsp;The Arab-Palestinians rejected it and chose instead, along with five Arab armies, to annihilate the nascent Jewish state which accepted the Partition Plan.&nbsp;The Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in eastern Jerusalem, which created controversy, was built by Jews.&nbsp;In 1948, when the Arab Legion conquered eastern Jerusalem, they expelled its Jewish residents from Sheikh Jarrah, and settled the homes with Palestinian refugees.&nbsp;In 1967, following the liberation of Jerusalem, the Jewish owners sought to return to their forcibly abandoned homes or sue for compensation.&nbsp;The Palestinian residents refused to pay rent, and the Israeli Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Jewish owners but declined to order the eviction of the Palestinian dwellers. That is justice, not colonialism.&nbsp;The AMP’s incitement against Jews is reminiscent of Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem and Hitler’s ally. In the 1920’s and 1930’s he falsely charged that the Jews aimed to take over the al-Aqsa mosque.


	Back at the AMP Chicago convention, Zahra Billoo, the American-Muslim activist and executive director of CAIR in San Francisco, presented her classical antisemitic incitement. She warned the attendees to “focus not only on the extreme right-wing forces, but also on ‘polite Zionists’, including the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Jewish Federations, Hillel, and ‘Zionist synagogues.’”&nbsp;Billoo asserted that “when we talk about Islamophobia, we think sometimes about the vehement fascists,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/california-muslim-leader-warns-about-polite-zionists-drawing-rebuke-from-adl/" target="_blank">but I also want us to pay attention to the polite Zionists. The ones that say ‘let us break bread together</a>.’” She then added, “<a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/california-muslim-leader-warns-about-polite-zionists-drawing-rebuke-from-adl/" target="_blank">They are not your friends</a>.”


	To further incite the crowd, Billoo invoked the falsehood used by left-wing activist groups that, “<a href="https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/zionists-are-behind-islamophobia-us-police-brutality-cair-official-68793" target="_blank">police officers in the US who kill unarmed black men, women, and children are trained by the Israeli military</a>.” In her speech, Billoo stressed the point that she&nbsp;does not&nbsp;support the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and claimed that “<a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/california-muslim-leader-warns-about-polite-zionists-drawing-rebuke-from-adl/" target="_blank">Allah promised us victory</a>.”&nbsp;In 2016, after Donald Trump was elected president, Billoo posted on&nbsp;Facebook,&nbsp;“<a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/california-muslim-leader-warns-about-polite-zionists-drawing-rebuke-from-adl/" target="_blank">He is going to do to you Muslims what Hitler did to the Jews</a>.”&nbsp;According to the&nbsp;<a href="https://canarymission.org/individual/Zahra_Billoo" target="_blank">Canary Mission</a>, Zahra Billoo is a supporter of Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam, the BDS movement, and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).&nbsp;She defended as an attorney terror financiers including Iran’s proxies Hamas and Hezbollah, and she equated the IDF with ISIS and Nazi Germany.&nbsp;In her demonization of American Jewish institutions, she compared the ADL to Hamas.


	On February 18, 2015, Billoo tweeted, “<a href="http://www.twitter.com/zahrabilloo/status/568098051732037632" target="_blank">I am more afraid of racist Zionists who support apartheid Israel than of the mentally ill young people the FBI recruits to join ISIS</a>.”&nbsp;In other words, the antisemitic and racist Billoo is afraid of Zionism – the Jewish national liberation movement, but not afraid of the vile murderous and jihadist ISIS, which committed near genocide on the Yazidi people in northern Iraq.&nbsp; Furthermore, she has maligned the FBI as recruiting Muslims for ISIS, which in itself is a libelous and vicious lie.


	It is clear that Zahra Billoo, CAIR, and the AMP are employing the racist Nazi propaganda, using Joseph Goebbels infamous dictum, “If you tell a lie long enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”&nbsp;AMP, Billoo, and CAIR, much like the Nazis, are preaching against association with Zionist Jews.&nbsp;Since most Jews are Zionist, their message is clearly anti-Jewish. But more than that, Billoo’s characterization of the “polite Jew” is essentially the same as the Nazi depiction of the “deceptive and dirty Jew.”&nbsp;Numerous Jewish groups seek to share warm and friendly relations with all faiths, including Muslims, based on equality, true mutual recognition, and acceptance.&nbsp;Only then is global interfaith peace possible.

The Jew-Hate of 'American Muslims for Palestine'

The American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) convention in Chicago on November 25-27, 2021 with the slogan titled “On the Road to Free Palestine,” was a clear

In Israel’s Defense Forces (IDF) annual assessment of the security situation and challenges to be faced in 2022, it appears that a moderate improvement in the security situation surrounding Israel is expected. The Israeli government approved the proposed budget submitted by the Defense Ministry.&nbsp;“<a href="https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/israel-finally-has-a-budget-and-so-does-the-idf-analysis-684009" target="_blank">Israel’s defense establishment will receive NIS 58 billion, an increase of NIS 7 billion</a>.”&nbsp;The extra allocation takes into account the possible operations against the Iranian nuclear facilities and other maligned Iranian schemes. According to reports, Israel would purchase various types of manned aircraft, intelligence-gathering drones, and unique munitions needed for a possible attack on Iran’s heavily fortified underground nuclear sites.


	The evolving strategic cooperation Israel has now with Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, is a definite positive development for Israel.&nbsp;In addition, halting the Iranians and their proxies from advancing toward Israel’s Golan Heights, and the support Putin’s Russia is giving to Israel’s operations against Iran is clearly a positive development.&nbsp;The Russians have not obstructed Israeli aerial operations against Iran’s shipment of arms to Hezbollah, nor the Israeli attacks on the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) bases and their proxies in Syria.


	What is difficult to predict, however, is when Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorist groups in Gaza would choose to launch another mini-war with Israel.&nbsp;During the May 2021 war, or as Israel calls it, Operation Guardian of the Walls, Hamas, and the PIJ suffered significant losses in personnel and arms.&nbsp;Many of their top engineers were eliminated, and their “secret weapons” (mini-submarines, and drones carrying bombs) were destroyed, along with a large quantity of their rocketry.&nbsp;The IDF has recommended a tough approach against Hamas’ attempts to rearm.


	Although the Lebanese Shiite-Muslim Hezbollah is far more powerful than its fellow terrorist group in the Gaza Strip, Sunni-Muslim Hamas, it is exercising far more restraint in operating against Israel. Having achieved supreme political and military power in Lebanon, Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah knows that a war with Israel at this time would jeopardize all that he and Hezbollah have managed to accomplish.&nbsp;The 2006 Second Lebanon War Hezbollah waged against Israel was a devastating one for the Lebanese. A war now would be even more costly for the suffering Lebanese. While both Hamas and Hezbollah’s raison d’être is the destruction of the Jewish state, Hezbollah, unlike Hamas, will be held accountable in the confessional Lebanese system of government.&nbsp;


	The chances for a war initiated by Israel’s enemies, i.e., Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas are projected to be low in 2022. The explosive situation that existed in the last few years on Israel’s northern border has been reduced, and it appears that neither Iran nor Hezbollah are ready for a full-scale war with Israel. Addressing Israel’s Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee last month, Israel’s Chief-of-Staff, Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi asserted that Hezbollah and the pro-Iranian militias in Syria were obstructed from receiving precision strategic weapons including additional missiles, drones, and air-defense batteries that could hinder the maneuverability of the Israeli Air Force.&nbsp;But, given the US and its western allies reluctance to use the military option against Iran, and the possibility that the US and the other JCPOA western members might settle for a partial deal is certain to provide Iran with incentives to incite a war against Israel either directly or through its proxies.


	At this juncture, the Iranian regime does not have the support of the Iranian people to engage Israel in a devastating war.&nbsp;Iran has not fully recuperated from the 1980-1988 war with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, and the US imposed sanctions have created a sharp contraction in the economy.&nbsp;We might also add the impact of the Covid 19 pandemic on Iran’s economic woes. The dictatorship of the Ayatollahs, while being less concerned with the hardship of its people, is very much concerned about preserving its power. As such, witnessing recent demonstrations throughout the country with calls such as “down with the dictator,” a reference to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the regime is fearful of an uprising among its repressed, predominately Sunni minorities, including Kurds, Ahwazi-Arabs, and Baluchis, in addition to the culturally deprived large Azeri minority.&nbsp;Urban Persians and those classified as the educated middle-class are also resentful of the regime.


	Once Iran becomes a verifiable “threshold nuclear state,” Jerusalem is likely to change its security assessment, and Israel might act unilaterally to stop the existential threat a nuclear Iran poses to the Jewish state.&nbsp;In that case, war with Iran is inevitable.&nbsp;Although the Biden administration has been consulting with Israel regarding the ongoing negotiations in Vienna, Washington has been dead set against any Israeli unilateral action against Iran’s nuclear facilities.&nbsp;Israel’s Defense Minister, Benny Gantz, pointed out that Israel’s defense establishment “<a href="https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/israel-finally-has-a-budget-and-so-does-the-idf-analysis-684009" target="_blank">is committed to safeguarding a strong, stable, fortified Israel, and ensuring that Iran does not develop an existential threat to Israel.&nbsp;We will continue to act with responsibility and to safeguard our independence of action in any place and sector, and secure Israeli citizens.</a>”


	The IDF has taken into consideration that an operation to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities would more than likely create a major conflagration, involving Hamas, and Hezbollah.&nbsp;Israel is counting on its three-pronged missile defense systems: short-range Iron Dome, medium-range David’s Sling, and long-range Arrow III missiles.&nbsp;In addition, Israel has the use of the Patriot surface-to-air interceptor missiles. Iran does have the ability to deploy missiles, drones, and cruise missiles, though its Air Force still deploys older generation US aircraft, and the US sanctions curtail Iran’s ability to acquire updated western military technologies. Israel’s technology, on the other hand, is at least a few steps ahead of the Iranians, and it has the capabilities (albeit not absolute) to protect its civilians and military personnel.&nbsp;In the near future, and in view of the increase in the defense budget, projects that were delayed will now be reactivated. Israel’s high-tech industries will be moving into laser technologies and electromagnetic beams, as well as cyber and artificial intelligence (AI).&nbsp;


	The fifth annual&nbsp;Blue Flag&nbsp;drill was held in Israel’s Negev last October with thousands of troops and dozens of aircraft from around the world including the US, Britain, France, Germany, Greece, India, Italy, as well as personnel from Australia, Croatia, Finland, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Romania, and South Korea. Israel’s Air Force (IAF) commander Maj. Gen. Amikam Norkin, invited as his personal guest the commander of the United Arab Emirates Air Force, Maj. Gen. Ibrahim Nasser Mohammed al-Alawi.


	Gen. Norkin believes that the international drill reaffirms the IAF’s legitimacy to act against external threats.&nbsp;He said, “We are living in a very complicated region, and the threats to the State of Israel from Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran are only increasing.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/air-force-drill-blue-flag-2021-enters-second-week-683046" target="_blank">Holding the international exercise in this current reality, while continuing our public and overt operational activities on all fronts</a>, is of utmost strategic importance, and has an extensive impact over the IAF, the IDF, and the state of Israel.”


	Finally, security cooperation and intelligence sharing with regional states, and in particular the Gulf states of UAE, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia, provides Israel with a new sense of confidence.&nbsp;Yet, one must caution Israel and the IDF in particular, not to resort to overconfidence, or reducing its vigilance.

Is War Between Israel and Iran Inevitable?

In Israel’s Defense Forces (IDF) annual assessment of the security situation and challenges to be faced in 2022, it appears that a moderate improvement in the

When it comes to fighting Israel, the Islamic Republic of Iran has no qualms about employing its ideological rivals - Sunni-Muslim terrorist groups like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).&nbsp;While the proxies Iran is using in Syria, Lebanon, and elsewhere are fellow Shiite militias from Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon (Hezbollah), Pakistan, and Yemen (Houthis), Hamas and PIJ in Gaza are Sunni-Arabs.&nbsp;Iran began to cultivate its anti-Israel fronts right from the early days of Ayatollah Khomeini.&nbsp;Since then, Tehran has essentially set up six fronts against Israel.&nbsp;The first front is Iran’s ballistic missiles that can hit Israel. In Lebanon, Hezbollah equipped with Iranian missiles is the second.&nbsp;Hezbollah and other Shiite militias in Syria are the third front.&nbsp;The Houthis in Yemen with Iranian supplied long-range missiles is the fourth front. Israeli-Arabs, particularly in mixed cities are potentially the fifth front (they demonstrated that in the recent Guardian of the Walls operation).&nbsp;Hamas is the sixth front, and the most potent.&nbsp;Hamas being closest to Israel’s population centers engendered the long-standing Iranian largesse toward the Gaza-based terrorists.&nbsp;


	Although Hezbollah is far more powerful than Hamas, it is more restraint in operating against Israel because of the nature of the Lebanese confessional system.&nbsp;Hezbollah, although yielding major power in Beirut, has to give political consideration to the impact on Lebanon should they provoke a war with Israel.&nbsp;The Second Lebanon War in 2006 devastated the country, and a future war might be even costlier for the Lebanese.&nbsp;Hamas simply does not have such constraints, and Hamas’ very raison d’être is to destroy Israel, not so much for sake of a Palestinian state in its place, but for the glory of Islam, and to recapture every inch of land formerly conquered by Islam.


	The Islamic Republic’s Modus Operandi against Israel and its other regional enemies is to incite their Arab-Palestinian proxies (Hamas and PIJ), provide them with cash, training, lethal arms, and ultimately have them pay back the Iranians with their own blood for the Ayatollahs regional hegemonic interests. This is true in Gaza, Syria, Southern Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen.&nbsp;It is mostly Arabs not Persians who pay in blood for the Iranian schemes.&nbsp;In recent years however, in what is called “the war between wars,” Israel has changed the formula, and is targeting Iranian assets in Syria, both human and material.&nbsp;Sometimes it is Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards corps (IRGC) personnel, and other times a missile base manned by Iranians, or some sophisticated weaponry shipped to Hezbollah from Iran.&nbsp;Ironically, and rather hypocritically, while the IRGC and Hezbollah are butchering fellow Sunnis in Syria, including Palestinians, Sunni-Muslim Hamas and PIJ engage with and praise the Tehran regime.


	Over the years, the Iranian regime had managed to smuggle thousands of rockets to build up Hamas’ arsenal.&nbsp;When it became hard for Iran to smuggle entire rockets in, they delivered rocket parts to Hamas.&nbsp;And when Israel sealed off the Gaza Strip, the Iranians sent engineers to teach Hamas’ engineers how to assemble the rockets.&nbsp;In the aftermath of the Guardian of the Walls Operation in May 2021, Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ political bureau chief based now in Qatar, thanked the Iranians for enabling Hamas to carry out its intense bombardment against Israeli population centers with over 4,000 rockets targeting Israeli civilians.&nbsp;He stated, Tehran “<a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/international/555431-pavlich-throwing-good-money-to-iranian-terrorism">did not hold back with money, weapons, and technical support</a>.”&nbsp;


	&nbsp;The real warming up in the relationship between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Palestinian offshoot of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, i.e., Hamas, occurred in 1991.&nbsp;Following the first Gulf war and the liberation of Kuwait, the US attempted to foster regional peace, including an Arab-Israeli peace, through the 1991 Madrid Conference.&nbsp;To counter US efforts, Iran convened a conference on Palestine, and invited the anti-peace camp, including Hamas to participate. About the same time, Hamas was already an active participant in the first intifada (1987-1991).&nbsp;In 1992, the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin deported&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1992/12/17/israeli-court-blocks-expulsion-of-arabs/81a2394d-3cc3-4451-9316-61938a3cab26/">418</a>&nbsp;of Hamas’ leading figures to Lebanon.&nbsp;A decade earlier, Iran had created its Shiite proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon.&nbsp;The latter, Islamist terror group Hezbollah, taught the Hamas deportees how to build and use suicide bombs and be suicide human bombs. As a result of an Israeli court order, Rabin allowed the deportees to return, and this resulted in the suicide bombers of the second intifada (2000-2005), which cost over 1,000 Israeli civilian lives.&nbsp;In 2006, as Hamas won in the Palestinian parliamentary elections, the US and the EU suspended aid to Gaza, then the Iranian regime decided to allocate&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/16/world/iran-to-give-50-million-to-hamasled-government.html">$50 million for Hamas.</a>


	Iran’s current Supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been far more committed to the Palestinian cause than his predecessor.&nbsp;It has been during Khamenei’s reign that the intensity of the Iranian–Israeli conflict grew to major proportions. Hamas’ surprise victory in the Palestinian elections dramatically transformed Iran’s relations with Hamas.&nbsp;By the end of 2006, Iran pledged&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau/2010/10/iran-primer-iran-and-the-palestinians.html">$250 million</a> in aid to a nearly bankrupt Hamas.


	Prior to the December 2008 Gaza war, codenamed Operation Cast Lead, Iran provided military aid and training to Hamas’ military wing Izz a-Din al-Qassam Brigades. Iran supplied the military equipment used by Hamas to launch the attack on Israel. In February 2009, Khaled Mashaal, head of Hamas’ political bureau, on a visit to Tehran after the war, thanked the Iranian regime, calling Iran,&nbsp;“<a href="https://www.deseret.com/2009/2/2/20299812/hamas-leader-thanks-iran-for-help-in-gaza-fight#damascus-based-hamas-chief-khaled-mashaal-3rd-left-and-an-unidentified-iranian-cler">a partner in victory</a>.”


	Iran played a key role in all recent engagements between Hamas and Israel.&nbsp;Iran incited Hamas and the PIJ to engage Israel; they funneled weapons, trained Hamas and PIJ operatives, and funded them.&nbsp;In March 2014, just months before Operation Protective Edge, Iran shipped&nbsp;<a href="https://www.jpost.com/operation-protective-edge/syrian-made-m302-rocket-fired-by-hamas-at-had">40 M302</a> heavy rockets to Hamas in Gaza aboard the Iranian owned ship “Klos C.” The rockets were hidden under Iranian cement bags. Israeli navy commandos seized the ship in the Red Sea on March 5, 2014.&nbsp;A UN report established that the “Klos C” had loaded the weapons shipment in the Iranian southern port of Bandar Abbas. Earlier, during the 2012 war in Gaza codenamed Operation Pillar of Defense, Hamas fired long-range Iranian manufactured missiles into Israeli population centers.&nbsp;This was repeated again in May 2021, during Operation Guardian of the Walls.&nbsp;This time, it was supplemented with a greater number of missiles fired at once into Israeli population centers, including Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.&nbsp;This was meant to overwhelm Israel’s Iron Dome defenses.&nbsp;The missiles this time were more accurate.&nbsp;In addition, Hamas used bomb carrying drones and mini-submarines, all of it helped by Iran. Israel’s Iron Dome shot down most of the missiles, while others fell in Gaza killing scores of Palestinians.


	Reuters&nbsp;reported&nbsp;(May 22, 2020) Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as saying, “Iran realized Palestinian fighters only problem was lack of access to weapons. With divine guidance and assistance,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-israel-khamenei/iran-lauds-arms-supply-to-palestinians-aga">we planned, and the balance of power has been transformed in Palestine, and today the Gaza Strip can stand against the aggression of the Zionist enemy and defeat it.”</a>&nbsp; This was a brazen admission of Iran’s fueling Hamas’ war against Israel.&nbsp;Sadly, the Obama administration 2015 nuclear deal provided the Ayatollahs with a windfall of cash.&nbsp;It was used to arm and fund the wars against Israel.

Iran Driving Hamas’ Terror Against Israel

When it comes to fighting Israel, the Islamic Republic of Iran has no qualms about employing its ideological rivals - Sunni-Muslim terrorist groups like Hamas

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